I'm just a student and whenever I read about American Slavery I have not once come across a situation of a slave who is not black. So just wondering. Thank you.

Im looking to run a classic medieval Dnd campaign, and I want to bring a level of realism to it.

So im looking for books and resources that accurately show what life consisted of for separate classes of peoples in medieval times.

From peasant to Noble, im looking for little intricacies and details that would help flesh out my world in a realistic way.

Any suggestions?

This is my one blind sight in European history. The success of the Renaissance originated from the Italian city-states that had grown very large and rich. I have ideas of why Italy could be eclipsed by the rest of Western Europe, but I want to hear the current narratives. Did the warring between the cities result in an Ancient Macedonia-Greece situation? Did the Ottoman's influence over the Mediterranean play a large role?

Yet Germany was also a collection of small states, and they became a region of great industry in later centuries. What was the difference?

I know in Iran, many have considered Mongols in a negative light. Yet 100s of years later, other rulers in Iran, including Timur and Nader Shah, still idolized Chengis Khan.

After the Mongol empire collapsed, did any rulers in China or Russia continue to idolize the Mongols? How was their legacy regarded amongst the Tsars of Muscovy and Imperial Russia? How did the Ming and Qing dynasties view the legacy of Chengis Khan?

A coal miner in the 1940s expended more energy daily than an office worker. It would seem that he needed more food. However, all the places on the Internet discussing British wartime rationing (the BBC, the Imperial War Museum, Wikipedia) seem to imply that all British adults were given equal amounts of food. Was this really so, or did I miss something?

What I mean by this question is, is there any sort of consensus as to whether or not Napoleon had a sincere belief in the righteousness of some of the things that he did--like spreading the Napoleonic code to the areas of Europe that he conquered or established power over a client states, or tearing away the entrenched power of the aristocracy in many of these places as well? Did he have a genuine drive to sweep away what many might now consider the antiquated prejudices of previous ages like religion and class?

Or did he only do these things because it was advantageous for his pursuit of his other goals of acquiring power and a greater degree of control? Was he "riding the wave" of republican ideals, so to speak, and as such he pushed the Napoleonic code because it gave him credibility and support from his power base at home in France? Did he only seek to weaken the aristocracy of Europe because he considered the power and mobilization of the entire people and the nation-state itself (the Levée en masse) to be the superior way to utilize a country's resources for war and for exerting its influence?

Does the reality lie somewhere in between? Was he a believer in the ideals of the revolution, who also happened to be a bit of a hypocrite when it came to his own status and position as an autocrat? His propensity for installing his family or supporters as rulers of his vassals seems to be relevant here as well, but if anyone could provide a different perspective on that as well.

I apologize if this question is too broad of confusing, I just find the French Revolution and the Napoleonic period, as well as Napoleon himself, very fascinating and complex.

I was reading the book of Leviticus for a class and was wondering if an average Jew would be performing all of these sacrifices. It seems like it would be rather cost/time prohibitive. I do not know much about this area so any knowledge would be appreciated.

Some other questions that I have are:

• How much would the Jewish sacrifices cost in today's society?
• When did Sacrifices start to die off?

A beheadscarfed friend was explaining why she supports AKP to me, and she cited a supposedly massive bodycount from Atatürk's abolition of the fez as one reason. To my knowledge, about five people were killed in Kastamonu for refusing to wear Western headgear, but she said it's more like five in every province of Turkey. I'd like to know the true brutality of this measure.

Thanks for the awesome answers guys!

As the question asks, I'm curious if there are any distinct words or phrases in contemporary languages of the Americas (i.e. English, French, and Spanish, but allowing for the huge volume of national/ethnic dialects) which have direct roots in the languages of Africans brought to North and South America as slaves.

I am also ignorant of how language use shifted over time in slave populations: for instance, when did native African languages cease being used or become almost entirely a part of a patois? Was this a naturally occurring event or was the linguistic shift a product of coercion? These are larger questions and ones I suspect I may find answered elsewhere, though a cursory /r/AskHistorians search doesn't turn up any results. So I am including them as a follow-up as they may be fundamental to any answers.

Thank you so much, and hoping your weekends are off to a good start!

I think the most notable example that comes to mind is Robinson Crusoe, whose full title is:

The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates.

But 12 Years a Slave does a similar thing, its title being

12 Years a Slave Narrative of Solomon Northup, citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana.

Was this how the plots of books were advertised back then? And if so, why do they essentially spoil the entire plot?

small hanger question, why did "pyrates" change to "pirates" over time?

Hello! I'm not sure if it's against the rules to ask a few questions in one go, but I didn't want to do a separate topic for each, so let me know which you can help answer with!

1. Firstly, I wanted to ask what the procedure was following the "liberation" of a nation. Using France as an example, assuming the Germans were pushed out of the majority of France. Were there internal hunter squads finding Germans in hiding? Did the Liberation forces set up a garrison across the country to maintain it until wars end?

2. What was the procedure for the nation re-joining the war following liberation? Another example I'll use is France, but we all know about the story of the Free French fighting alongside Britain and her Allies. When the country was liberated, did their main army mobilize to join the Allied effort or did they leave them to it? What about other liberated European countries?

3. What were the main problems faced by nations that were liberated during the war, following the action? This extends, obviously, beyond 1945, but were there any major administration or social difficulties involved with the Germans being driven out and control given back to the nation?

Thanks all, and thanks for the help with whichever question you answer. I know it's a broad question, but there are a lot of countries that were liberated by the British, Americans, Canadians and Russians during the invasion of Europe, and I'd like to know any of the stories you can give me about the broad area of Europe, or the specific countries you are involved in the history of.

I'll ask for more details if you want them, if you have a specific part of Europe you know information on!

That is, did they ever combine semantic units into a new character to convey how they felt about a certain idea, place or thing?

As an example of what I'm thinking of, it'd be as if a radical atheist created his own character for 'religion' with the character's components being the characters for 'stupid' and 'beliefs' along with a hint to what the word's phonetic component is.

From what I have read, Arianism seems to have had a quite strong popular and political following well into the mid-first millenium: How did it collapse in face of other religions or sects?