Hey everyone. Lately I've really been getting into Roman history thanks to two amazing audiobook series by The Teaching Company and also thanks to the HBO series Rome. While I know that the TV series takes artistic liberties (the "Roman" salute, as an example), the audiobooks don't go too heavily into detail about clothing styles and how officers of the public were differentiated.

I'm also really interested in the idea of recreating some of these uniforms just as a hobby, so if some light could be shed on it, I'd really appreciate it.

I'm mainly interested in the roles of the magistrates like the tribunes, quaestores, praetores, triumviri and so on. I've had a bit of a look around the net but couldn't come up with anything concrete, so any detailed academic sources would be really welcome.

Thanks!

If you know of any articles which would be useful please let me know!

More specifically, why did the Ghanian, Malian and Songhai Kingdoms dissolve?

I've just read up a bit on the Gallipolli campaign, and apparently a part of the reason the Ottomans were dragged into a war against the allies was that Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon of the Imperial German Navy led the Ottoman navy, and he acted on his own to order the Dardanelles closed, preventing supplies to the Russian Empire. Why did the Ottomans let Souchon command their navy? And I'm sure this isn't the first time I've read about such things...

I've seen it in Assassins Creed, I've heard it mentioned a few times, but even though I volunteer in a naval museum I've never seen any direct mention of it, and Wikipedia/the parts of the internet I've found don't seem to have a date or a year for its first use.

I volunteer at the Mary Rose museum, a ship that was in service for the Tudor navy from 1511-ish to 1545, and I was wondering if it would have used a chain shot, or if it had been used against the ship at any time, since people sometimes ask me about it and I have no idea! As an addition to that, if you have any non-chain-shot related questions about the Mary Rose or the museum built around it, I'd be happy to answer!

Also uuh... Hello to the people I work with who found this post and are now laughing at my username

If we can point to a general period in which "turkification" (if it had indeed occured) was set in stone in inner Anatolia so that even if the Byzantine Empire were to retake it from the Turks, it would find that the residents would not speak Greek and practice Orthodox Christianity?

I would assume that at least in times of Alexios I, most of Anatolia must have been "Greek"- but was it irreversible by the time of Manuel Komnenos??

And also an unrelated question, but how much control did the Byzantine Empire have in the Komnenian era of their "reconquests" in coastal Anatolia, Cilicia, Bulgaria and the Balkans? Were they just nominal suzerainty or was it controlled by Constantinople so that a central governor would be sent to the provinces and actually govern them?

Considering the enormous effect that artists such as T.S. Eliot had on the representation of WWI and its aftermath, it can be hard to separate the established narrative from the narrative that people at the time were telling. Would anyone at the time have disagreed with this narrative - and if so, why or why not?

Even though there are many differences among all these civilizations, primarily in writing, should they be considered to be an evolution of one?

Thank you.

couldn't find but a few picks with google searches.. was hoping for a better resource.

I have an exam tomorrow on the topic and my teacher has barely explained this concept to us. If anyone can go into depth on how the alliance systems such as the triple entente, the alliances between Russia and Serbia etc. contributed to the First World War breaking out.

It seems to have been accomplished with relative ease, with the Roman Empire bringing to an end the "Ancient Greece" that had lasted for so long. Was it simply numbers, technology or the fact that the Greeks couldn't get along enough to unite again against a common foe?

From what I understand, the tradition began with Ronald Reagan in 1981. Did Dwight Eisenhower ever or even regularly do so?

When reading history that involves people from the Steppe, Mongols, Huns, Xiongnu (I hope I'm spelling that right lol) etc. one question always pops up in my head; If they were nomadic pastoralists, how did they gather metal?

Would they have time to manage a mine if they were constantly on the move? Did they simply plunder enough from settled societies to provide adequate supplies for war?

Thanks in advance

Edit: Grammar

Was this seen as a "damage to property"?

Why go so far south when the closer California or Great Plains (maybe most didnt want to hike across the rockies, I get that) was less hot, buggy, and plagued by diseases like malaria? Or why sail and settle in Hispaniola instead of florida? Are there reasons for this? Was the climate or geography much different?

Often when we talk about the Dark Ages at school everybody gets this feeling of how inhumane executions were. Obviously we cannot deny there were many perverse methods used in the Middle Ages for torture/execution; but, how common did these types of things really happen? Did all criminals/convicted felons get executed/tortured in a brutal manner?

I've heard it quoted that 3-4 times more bombs were dropped during the American involvement in Vietnam than in WWII (6-8 million metric tons versus 2 million [though the USSBS says 2.7 million]). Based on my admittedly limited knowledge, this seems strange- from what I've read, the Vietnam-era Air Force and Navy were heavily hamstrung both by government micromanagement and the pressure of foreign and domestic popular opinion in terms of their ability to strike targets. Olof Palme's denunciation of Linebacker II as a crime against humanity comes to mind, despite those attacks being far less damaging than any number of WWII strategic bombing raids. In addition, the numbers of aircraft involved were far lower, on the scale of several hundred versus many thousands of aircraft in action during the world war.

The factors that I can think of that would have influenced the numbers upward would be the relative bomb loads of the aircraft, the greater length of the conflict, and the lesser concern over/casualties from air defense.

Is this all, or is there some part of the equation that I'm missing here? Also, and this is probably more pertinent- why is my perception of the relative sizes of the bombing campaigns divergent from reality? I'm sure millions of tons of those bombs were dropped in Laos and Cambodia, so is part of it just a U.S. attempt to cover up or downplay aspects of the air war in order to influence public views of the war?

From my understanding, at the beginning of World War 1, most soldiers were wearing cloth/leather helmets at the start, but by the end were wearing steel helmets. Same with during the American Revolution, they were not wearing helmets.

My question is, when did helmets phase out? At what point did somebody say "hey lets just wear hats"

I have been talking to a few Christians and I am noticing a trend. They claim that before the theory of evolution came along, Christians did not have an answer or care how human beings came about.

I figure that they believed their scriptures account, the creation account in Genesis.

But instead they insist that no, Christians didn't take that literally and didn't care about how humans came about.

This seems really wrong, but i am incapable to finding anything.

I didn't really know where else to go, so I came here. If anyone knows anything that can steer me towards the answer it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

troubles*

I'm looking to learn more about northern ireland and the troubles specifically. I'd like something relatively unbiased, i want to read it for a class project, however it can be as explicit as necessary.

I'm a religious Jew who believes in the bible/Torah and I believe that the first human was Adam. I'm not really looking to get into a religious debate... More like who was the first human in recorded history if you don't believe in the bible. Thanks!