I am curious how they would identify each other back then. Was it a secret society back then or were they more open?

Or did they always come up with some justification?

Were prostitutes within any armies of antiquity? Were they hired to go along with armies if the trips were long or did they simply follow armies because they knew the money was going to be good? Or was this simply looked down upon?

On the one hand, I have read that early arquebus and matchlock muskets were useful only at a very close range and were very inaccurate, but on the other I have read that they were actually effective and their killing range was generally equal to the killing range of bows (75 yards or so, what is that in meters?) and had superior armour piercing capabilities at that distance.

Even for the darkest of pessimists, when the great powers of Europe went to war in August 1914, their troops were supposed to be home by Christmas.

"It will be a very short war -- a month, six weeks, perhaps," a French lieutenant, Charles Delvert, recalls a comrade telling him at the outset of the conflict.

"'No', I told him, 'It will be a drawn-out war -- at least three months,'" he writes in his diary.

How high ranking officers could be so credulous?

In Crusader Kings II, as a ruler in medieval Europe, you can ask the Pope for a claim on a kingdom whose ruler is disliked by the Pope. You need not have any dynastic connection to that ruler, or legitimate claim to their land, at all. Did something like this ever happen?

To clarify, the opening of the Olympics just showed a video that was supposed to be an abridged history of Russia, it began with a camera zooming in on Greece, then showing a number of Greek looking ships landing on a coast line. I'm aware of Greek colonies in Turkey, but were there more to the North, maybe along the Black sea that helped form what we know as Russia?
I tried searching for it myself, however all I'm finding is political connections going back hundreds of years as opposed to the thousands shown in the clip.

Seems like several counties have red white and blue flags and just have the colors organized differently.

The Swedish tactics had worked incredibly well up until Poltava, and then the entire continental army was lost in a single battle. Where did the battle go wrong?

Bonus! What the hell happened to all of the prisoners? That's a shit ton of people to have to imprison. I know they were pressed into building or rebuilding a nearby city, but what then? Were they imprisoned forever? Worked to death? Pressed into the Russian Army? Any hope of release?

How did China become so backwards by the 19th century? I'm talking pre-Opium wars since they are just a symptom of the underlying weakness of Chinese society. What did they do wrong and what can we learn from it?

SO is reading a fiction book involving Nazi's and its mentioned that during one of the many street killings of Jews, one soldier collapses and another refuses to kill anymore..another mentions a soldier getting up in the middle of the night and walking out their station and killing themselves..

Is there any proof things like this occurred, or if there was a refusal to kill, what would be their punishment ?

I've been reading over the transcripts of the Kennedy Administration meetings on the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I was wondering why the Americans were so concerned about the U.S.S.R placing missiles so close to their border, but the Russians didn't react so violently when the U.S. put missiles in Turkey. Did the Russians not care, or did they not want to press the issue?

Do I follow the hair fashions of the day (if there are such)? How do the fashions arise? Is my hair styling notably different from less important women?

Suppose I live in a distant province like Britain or Judea. Do I try to keep up with the fashions of the capital? How do I learn about them?

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the correct subreddit for this question-but it's worth a try.

I'm a British student currently studding GCSE's and going on to do A Levels next year. I want to try and broaden my general knowledge of history.

I feel that only learning about specific elements of history does not give me enough knowledge to have a general conversation about history, thus having a wider range of knowledge, would be fantastic.

I know the direct approach would to be pick up a text book, or research on the internet. However I stream a lot of T.V and movies so I figured if I could watch something more informative it would be a better use of my time.

If any of you have heard of horrible histories, I used to watch that when I was younger and loved it- so a more mature version of that would be great.

If anyone has seen/watched a good documentary or t.v series related to history, then please leave a comment. Thanks.

Dragon myths seem to be fairly widespread and most people have heard about the winged European dragons, the Norse lake dragons, the serpentlike Oriental dragons and possibly the feathered Mesoamerican dragons but what about the rest of the world?

Bonus question: Are there any stories about someone interacting with another cultures dragon myths? For example a scholar or a trader listening to/reading about someone elses dragon story and going "Hey wait a minute that's not a dragon".

Do historians think Zoroaster existed?

the guy ruled when the crisis of the third century was at it's worst

The way I see it, Argentina has never gotten properly industrialized (even compared to similar settler countries like Australia or Canada) for a couple of groups of reasons - 1) not the right social and institutional factors (e.g. large rural landowners being more predominant in Argentine affairs than the urban middle classes or rural family farms; civil society being weaker than the armed forces - in both cases, the other way around in the Anglo countries) and 2) the almost total reliance on agriculture for exports (vs. minerals on top of agriculture for Australia, say) and the lack of backward linkages to agricultural exports as compared to mineral exports.

Of those groups of reasons, is it the first which is the more important reason? In other words, was it the way Argentine society was structured, more than the almost total reliance on agricultural products for export and corresponding lack of backward linkages, that contributed to the lack of authentic industrialization in that country?

Why not some form of independence, limited or not?

For those unaware, firing guns without ear protection such as earplugs can cause severe hearing damage with long-term effects. Did the militaries of the 20th century provide for this? Were there any training or medical procedures to help soldiers deal with it? Are there any reported instances of such hearing damage being a problem among infantry?