Did the Polish Winged Hussars use bows? I f they did what kind of bows and arrows did they use? Also did they use winged Hussars as guards? I think I heard/read somewhere that they looked intimidating and were very good at fighting so they put some of them on guard. Thanks.

How prevalent was the use of plate armor in medieval armies and how expensive was it to produce? Could any blacksmith produce plate armor or was it a highly skilled trade?

I regularly hear people refer to the Carter presidency as having been terrible, but without specifics. A quick wikipedia read tells me that the economy wasn't great, and the Iranian hostage crisis happened under his presidency, but nothing so terrible as to write his presidency off completely.

What made Jimmy Carter's presidency so bad that people don't feel the need to debate or elaborate when someone says he sucked?

I mean nation as a characteristic of the people, not a country.

I've read somewhere that it was during the reformation as a new unifying feature, is it correct?

I have the basics such as Richelieu using the intendants to raise taxes and Mazarin doing the same. Plus I have information on Colbert investing in industry and the trading companies and the surplus of livres the government had during Colbert's time. Anything I'm missing?

Here's my situation: I'm writing a paper for a history class on the topic of changes in the US economy between 1896 and 1936. More specifically, I'm looking at the positions of different American industries in relation to their international competitors and how they changed over this period, and how those changes affected the party system that emerged in 1896. There's good secondary sources on the trajectory of major industries that I've found, but it seems a lot more difficult and complicated to try to cobble together what the secondary sources say by using the primary sources.

I'm an undergrad, and my prof wants all the papers to rely on primary sources. I can't help but feel that in my paper's case this rule doesn't really make sense, as it's just a very big project if I try to prove my points using primary sources and a pretty simple one if I use secondary sources. But maybe I'm being lazy, and good history is always done with primary sources. Do you guys have any thoughts on this?