Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire by Simon Baker.

As someone who knows more about Rome's history than the average person but is not even close to an expert would this book be a good historically accurate depiction of Rome?

I also am not totally sure if this is an appropriate question for this sub so if it isn't can someone please inform me and I will delete it.

I've been a huge 'A Song of Ice and Fire' fan for years now and it's been fun to see what the community of fellow fans has been doing as the books come out. Lots of speculation, lots of collective angst, lots of fan-fiction and arguing and fan-art and all sorts of other stuff.

Did anything like this happen for Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy? Did fans worry about when the next installment would come? Did they speculate about what would happen in each volume? Did they draw pictures of the characters or write non-canonical stories about them? And if any of this happened, how was all this done without something like the Internet?

Broadly: how did fans of the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy respond to the series as it came out? And also, I guess, how did the media? Were there magazine articles about it? Television features? Anything?

I'm sorry if this question is a bit obscure; I am unfamiliar with much of its context. I'm reading Norwich's The Popes and in Chapter 2 he writes the following brief passage about Christians in the Roman Empire in the second century:

"For Christians (...) life under Commodus was a good deal easier (...) to the point where a eunuch named Hyacinthus became the first (and almost certainly the last) man in history to combine the duties of controller of a 300-strong harem and a presbyter of the Christian Church."

I tried to find a bit more information about this Hyacinthus, who apparently raised the emperor's favourite concubine and played some kind of role in the successes of Pope Victor I. Norwich doesn't mention anything else and I haven't been able to find much. I found a reference to the Philosophumena (IX, 12) but this source doesn't actually seem to back up any of these statements very strongly, referring to Hyacinthus only as 'a eunuch,' although it does relate him being sent on important business.

Does anyone know more about Hyacinthus or the surrounding story?

I did a tour of the RMS Queen Mary when I was a child. I recall that the lower two classes had metal handrails in the halls (gold in 2nd class and brass in 3rd class, if I remember correctly) but that 1st class had plastic handrails. The tour guide said that, at the time the ship was built, plastic was a novelty because it was warm to the touch and, because it was still rare, was seen as a luxury.

First of all, does my memory of this sound plausible, that 1st class on the RMS Queen Mary had plastic handrails for this reason? Was plastic seen as luxurious in the 1930s? Were there many plastic items from that decade that were meant only for the wealthy?

Why did this technology take so long to develop, and, how did people open cans in the pre-can opener era?

I've been playing a lot of Europa Universalis IV, and I noticed that The Mamluks and Ottomans were the primary occupiers of Egypt during the era the game takes place(1444-1820).

I've always thought of the Great Pyramids were something that became popular during the 1900s, so I'm curious as to how these older civilizations treated them. I'm mostly curious about the eras the game takes place in, but really anything before the 1900s is what I'm asking about.

So yeah, I'm curious as to how civilians or tourists(if they were around during that time) viewed them. If there was ever a time they tried to tear them down to make room for a settlement of some kind, or if any scholars studied them as much as I assume Europeans did in the 1800s. I'm just wondering how they were viewed.

In listening to vocal recordings from the early years of recorded voice (movies, speeches, music, etc), it seems that voices come through at a far higher pitch than you'd think they would sound in person.

Is this due to limitations of recording and audio processing equipment of the time? Was it due to taste preferences for higher voices?

Did he really exist? If so, how did he establish his rule over the Slavs? Were the nobles of the Rurikid family actually descended from him, or was this just a myth to legitimize their authority?

I have a bet with a friend and I couldn't find any solid information on-line, so an answer from the learned community here would be very much appreciated.

I'm an American historian who will be visiting northern Italy this summer and I'm looking for book recommendations to help me prepare for my visit. Ideally, I'd like to find a great one-volume monograph summarizing Italian history but I know that's a difficult proposition. I'll be visiting Brescia, Verona, Ravenna, Milan, and Lake Garda, and I'd love to have some historical context for the sights I'll be seeing, so that's everything from Roman and Byzantine architecture and churches to post-WWII economic redevelopment and reconstruction. Any ideas? Thanks!

So I was watching a documentary on Winston Churchill today and I noticed that a variety of sources -from textbooks to documentaries to non-fictional films- often leave out Russia's contribution to the war. I don't want to downplay British fortitude or her determination to keep fighting until victory nor America's significance in the war, but I'm curious as to why we don't talk about Russia's part in helping us defeat Germany. Were U.S history books regarding WWII written several years later when the Cold War/Anti-Russian sentiment was firmly rooted and thus, we made their effort insignificant/absent? Or were the figures of how many Russian soldiers were killed during WWII and their victories kept secret, which allowed it to evade history curriculum for decades? These may sound like really stupid questions, but how else am I going to learn more about military history!

Sidenote: I mentioned U.S history since I'm American and I haven't read or watched enough British sources to make generalizations about their perception of the war.

Thank you to anyone who decided to read all this!

I remember reading/hearing somewhere that originally the British sounded like Americans do today (not that there is one American accent, but I hope you get what I mean). Is this true? Was it the other way round? Why do accents evolve?

What were the causes and consequences of battle of Crete? And what effect did it have on New Zealand?

If you could point me to some useful sources I would be greatful.

I've recently got really interested in Ancient Greece and particularly Sparta. What would you say would be the best general book on either but also any particularly good books concerning a specific subject. Any help appreciated.

Has it always been this way, or was there a certain time/reason it was classified as not-meat on Fridays during Lent?

Either voluntary or involuntary. I'm also interested if it was common to move to a different type of unit as well (Ex: footman -> archer). Thank you!

Just wanted some different opinions other than my own haha, Thanks!