Or, to be a bit more precise: direct borrowings, without an intermediary stage within the Jewish tradition. I am completely ready to accept, of course, that it may be hard to tell in many cases. I am interested in all types of texts—the Qu'ran, early exegesis, sirat, poetry…

For example: if there are any Egyptian or Assyrian writings that talk about a warlord named Abraham and his two sons Isaac/Ishmael, or something. Or maybe if some pagan sources talk about a great warrior named Goliath.

Uzbekistan extends a tendril into Kyrgyzstan, while Tajikistan curls around a spur of the same; additionally there are a bunch of small exclaves in Kyrgyzstan as well.

Is there a geographic or (I'm sure) ethnic basis for this division? How were these borders worked out and agreed to, especially after the dissolution of the USSR?

If any of it happened within twenty years, I don't mean to break the rule, but I'm not even sure where to start on this!

I'm not asking from a philosophical perspective but a historical one... was Rome actually like what he describes as an Earthly City?

The year 2000 was celebrated by humanity, but what about the year 1000? Obviously it would have been limited to the Christian world, but how aware were people/society and was it of any significance to people back then?

I've heard that they had the ability to punch through some plate armour, and I'm wondering if there are other qualities that made it so widely used by the English.

Inspired by the question about the Latvian government .

When I go to the supermarket I can buy different varieties of fish: cod, mackerel, tuna, salmon. Did ancient Mediterraneans (or any highly populated coastal civilizations) know what type of fish they were eating?

Follow-up: I've also heard that shellfish like lobster and crab used to be considered low-class food, now they are luxury cuisine. Has any other seafood experienced a major swing like this?

There have been a few fish questions on the front page recently. Does anyone know of good sources for fishing history?

I'm familiar with battles where a undisciplined army, after winning a partial victory and stopping to plunder, gets attacked by reformed or held-back enemies (Tagliacozzo 1268, Mezőkeresztes 1596), but are there any cases where the prospect of plunder was used to intentionally lull an enemy into dispersing and plundering, and then springing the trap?

I have a Wikipedia-level knowledge of Russian history in the 18th and 19th centuries. My sense is the Peter the Great and his successors tried to modernize Russia economically and militarily and met with mixed success at best.

Nevertheless, Russia seemed quite successful in imposing its will on the Ottoman Empire, which was also trying to modernize with mixed results. In addition, Russia was able to serve as "Europe's policeman" and go toe-to-toe with modern European military powers in a way that other less-modernized entities around the world (the Turks, Persians, Indians, Chinese, etc.) could not. Yet, by World War I Russia was in bad enough shape that it couldn't arm all of its own troops.

This is admittedly a broad question, but to summarize: Russia seemed to be in the same boat as a lot of other non-Western powers in the 18th and 19th centuries, in terms of modernity (and the power that comes with it). However, Russia seems to have been a lot more powerful militarily than the other non-Western powers.

Why is this? Are one of my premises wrong?

I need some information for an essay I'm attempting on the "Scramble for Africa". I have tried to find information on this but my searches are always overwhelmed with books and articles on the life of African Americans. Can anybody help me out? Did Africans feel subjugated by their European intruders or did life go on generally unhindered? I'd also welcome any information on the Boers in South Africa and how colonial domination by the British affected their way of life as well? Thanks guys.

Do they shred documents? Run for the doors with the silverware and beg for political asylum? Hope for rapprochement with the new regime?

I just started watching the pirate TV show "Black Sails" and they show the whore house quite a lot. So that got me thinking, how did prostitutes in those times (and other times) not get pregnant? I understand the "pull out" method and they probably drank a lot, so conditions for pregnancies weren't perfect. But with the amount of sex they had, it seems it's just a matter of time before they did get pregnant. Was there some kind of "industry-wide standard" so to say, on dealing with this "occupational hazard"?

Also, surely at some point they did get pregnant and surely at some point attempts at abortions failed. So how did they deal with being pregnant and then having a child? Did they try to figure out who the father was? Did they somehow try to get money from the father (if the father was rich)? Did they try to get the father to care for her and the child in some way? How was their standing in the whore house affected by being pregnant and then being a mother? Surely there was no "maternity leave" for them. How did their reputation and attractiveness suffer, if at all, during and after pregnancy? What happened to the kid? etc etc etc

It has been a few years since I had AP U.S. History, but I recall reading in my textbook that the Aztecs, as a way of getting back at the Spanish, baked blood that was contaminated with diseases (most notably syphilis) into bread they made for the Spaniards. I was trying to find some evidence of this online, but I was not able to do so. Is this something the authors just made up, or is this just something that doesn't exist on the Internet for whatever reason?

Basically I want to understand a little better really how much ahead he was from his time if he was at all.

Any heresies where Satan is the good guy, not the quasi-libertarian teen angst good guy, but an actual good guy.

I just finished that book and I wish it didn't end before the battle of the Marne!