When did became tied to currency and why gold instead of more useful goods? Also, is gold actually useful for anything besides electronics?

More broadly, when did it become expected that governments attempt to intervene in economics?*

This question just popped in my head.

First forgive me if what I'm going to ask sounds too stupid.

Considering the Roma/Gypsy population ultimately came from outside Europe in the Middle Ages, and didn't carve a country of its own like the horse nomad peoples (Avars, Bulgars, Magyars, etc) but extended all over the continent, is there a historical reason to why the Gypsy population is more concentrated in certain regions than others?

Why are Romania and Bulgaria the countries with a higher number of Gypsies?

Meanwhile we find that Spain is the Western European country with more Gypsies, about 500-600,000. Of these, 300,000 alone live in Andalusia. Why did they settle predominantly there, if their arrival is documented to have happened from France through Catalonia in the 1470s, on the opposite side of the Iberian Peninsula?

This is something I've been wondering for a bit. At first glance it seems like it would be more animalistic, but after thinking a bit more I thought it would probably be pretty similar to what we do now (for example Kate Fox's SIRC guide to flirting or the way we use body language).

EDIT: I formulated this a bit weird and made a spelling error (please don't judge), sorry. I'm meant how the courting/mating ritual was for the Homo Sapiens in the neolithic and pre-neolithic period.

Also, has this been a partisan issue or more of a geopolitical issue?

In "Beat! Beat! Drums!", Whitman writes, "make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the hearses." What are trestles in this context? Are they referring to bridges?

I've been listening to The History of Rome and what struck me is that Constantine really didn't seem that great. I've read a bit of Gibbon and, of course, with him blaming Christianity for the decline of empire, Constantine does get blame apportioned to him. In addition to his elitist economics and his family murdering, his succession after his death was badly organised. Does he only get called "the Great" due to his introduction of Christianity (in a "history is written by the victors" style) or was he actually really good as he seems, to me, to pale in comparison to a really great contemporary emperor like Diocletian.

Presumably it's in the Doomsday book.

I've heard multiple people make the argument that the inability of the Soviets to keep up the arms race with Reagan's military spending was a large part of the reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union's economy. Is there any truth to that?

Im just wondering what happened after the war with everyone who's last name was Hitler. Did most of them change it or keep the name?

Was there any sort of backlash to the others that share his family name?

Given that it could take months for documents to travel to England and back, how much freedom of action did the British commanders have? Were they given any guidelines of were they free to do whatever was needed to stop the rebellion?

All I have read (admittedly not much) on the subject of the Cultural Revolution describes it as chaotic time initiated by Mao as a means of getting back on top, the only long-term impact of which is the new Chinese leadership's emphasis on stability. But it must have meant something in Communist terms, i.e. been presented a policy shift within Marxist-Leninist-Maoism with reasons and goals. What were they? Were any of them acheived? Did any of them last?

What did they come home to? Were they revered? Is there any mention of PTSD treatment in medical texts?

I've been looking at the Greco-Bactrian kingdom during my vacation, and I found it odd that a lot of contemporary writers claimed that Bactria was one of the wealthiest kingdoms in the Hellenistic World, with a "thousand golden cities". Given how little evidence there is for very many cities in what was essentially a country of nomads (I was taught that Ai Khanum was pretty much it as far as the evidence went), and the fact that it spent most of its brief existence at war with India, Parthia, and the Seleucid Empire, I'm curious to know exactly where this reputation for wealth and opulence comes from.