Besides human arrival ca 40,000ya and rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age i've never heard of any chronology for australia before european arrival. Has archeology or dreamtime-decoding managed to give us anything like this?

Wikipedia mainly refers to the huge list of movies which were made with him as a character, but I was wondering what about him made him folk-hero levels of legendary. Anything would be appreciated!

It seems that the more ancient Greek would be more likely to die out than Latin. Why would Latin change into Italian (French and Spanish I can understand, but why would it get lost even in its homeland?) while Greek persists?

When I look back to the height of the Cold War, I can't help but think that the national fear of the idea of communism was pretty irrational and kind of ridiculous. Of course, I wasn't around during that time, so I'm considering that there might be something I'm missing here. Now, I obviously see the fear resulting from events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and threat of nuclear war as justifiable concern, but the actions of the Red Enemy itself is not the part confusing me. What I would like to know is, was our fear of communism as a whole, not just the Soviet Union, rational? Throughout the Cold War, it was often said that Communists want to destroy our way of life, or similar things, which is part of our rationale for "Preventing the spread of Communism at all costs". We are well aware of the wide use of propaganda by both sides at the time, but is there any truth to most of the reasons we were so scared of them? Was it all just the government trying to paint a bad image of our rivals to get the public to dislike them as much as they did? I would like to understand if there was really such a danger brought upon by the entire economic and social ideology of communism that it was within reason to completely avoid anything even partially related to it.

I've just started reading more history on Napolean, and while I always thought that he was a large promoter and benefactor for French nationalism, the book I was reading mentioned briefly how Napolean had dreams for a combined and unified continental Europe.

To what degree did these two goals (if he had both of them) actually A) reflect his own beliefs, B) manifest themselves in his actual policies, and C) overlap?

I'm brainstorming for a "biography of the US" video project for a class I'm taking. I'm thinking of taking it in the direction of counterculture. It seems as though the term is most popularly tacked onto the hippie movement of the '60s, but I'm looking at it through a wider scope.

What is the history of countercultural movements/ideas in America (from colonial days to today)? It's easy to peg the hippie subculture, the civil rights movement, and the antiwar movement, but what about the 1800s? The '30s? What countercultures filled in the gaps between these more well-known ones?

Essentially, I'm trying to investigate how counterculture has evolved in America since the beginning. Think of this as a clearinghouse question intended to flesh out its history as much as possible. I'm pickin' your brains for info as well as sources I can look into.

I used to think (based entirely from what I had seen in movies) that huge armies would clash and people would hack, slash, and stab each other with swords until all of the members of one army were killed or unable to fight. But I asked one of my teachers how wars were fought and he told me that armies rarely had full on battles but would rather send out a couple of their best warriors and let them fight it out. Is he right?

I'm reading Reay Tannahill's Food in History, and one of the things the author talks about is the sheer number and variety of sheep throughout Europe and the Near East. At one point, she makes the claim that there were roughly three times as many sheep as people in England in the 15th century. She also uses a quote that says that the population of 90 000 of Florence ate 60 000 sheep per year, in addition to other meats. However, this doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

So where did all the sheep go? Tannahill has made some claims that I think are a bit suspect over the course of the book, but I want to believe that there was - as she puts it - a "cheese mountain." Why don't we like sheep anymore?

I asked this about 6 months ago and got a few upvotes, but no replies so I'm hoping an expert has arrived.

I know that Goose Bay was a joint air base that included the RAF, RCAF and the AAF. I am curious to see what the AAF's role while stationed there was, and what their major contributions to the war effort were. Considering it was the largest air base in the entire world as of 1944 (I think), it doesn't have a much information or pictures floating around on it. I'm aware that it was considered a central point between ferrying plans to Europe and loading/repairing others on their ways to assorted locations. Did it have any fighter or bomber units? Did missions fly out of Goose Bay? What did the American units posted there contribute to the war? My grandfather was stationed there. As far as I know he was on some sort of dental team that flew out of Goose Bay to other assorted isolated locations to work on teeth. I believe he also held a secondary MOS to make him useful while in flight. I have zero information on the units stationed there, what they specifically did (him included), or what their contributions to the war as a whole was. Any insight, pictures and information would be warmly welcomed. This has been an ongoing project of mine for many years.

Before the invention of the gun. I know ninjas would be considered as such. Are there any in western history?

Thank you to all the people who responded. I find it all very interesting and this will provide some good reading.

I've been reading through my western civ textbook and it seems as though they just picked up where they left off. Not really any transition into learning how to write again. Probably a stupid question

This question is very badly framed, I know. I am curious about the prevalence of so-called "country" names in the US and when people started migrating away from traditional names (Thomas, James) to names we hear nowadays (Travis, Jayden, etc.). I don't think I've come across a person with the first name Randy in pre-WWII literature/history. Is this naming trend real or confirmation bias on my part? Is it associated with any other social movements?

Both conflicts draw many parallels. Both wars involved brutal guerrilla warfare, horrible atrocities and both wars were very unpopular with the general populace, but the Americans were able to win in the Philippines, resulting in the surrender of the Philippino guerillas. Why was America able to win in one guerrilla conflict but lose in the other?

I asked these questions a few months back during Viking AMA, but got no answers. Maybe now on my cakeday I will get more lucky!

So the questions I asked there:

I have a few questions.

First, hungarians:

Looking at maps, it seems there was about a century when both vikings and hungarians did raids in western europe. Is there evidence they ever met? If yes what kind of interaction they had?

In western europe did any source make connection between the vikings and hungarians. The totally different culture, transportation, etc. was enough to distinguish, or to put it in another way: as they might have been both seen as god's revenge for being sinful (by the way were they seen this way or is it a later addition by scholars?), was a connection made between them by western europeans?

I read somewhere that a few hundred viking warriors served in Stephen I.'s court. Any of you know, whether it is true, and if yes were they bodyguards, elite soldiers or something else? How did they end up in Hungary?

The second topic is about the eastern mediterranean. Vikings reached Byzantium and Sicily. Did any group ever ventured further west/east and ended up meeting other vikings? And if yes how was the relationship between them? And in general how was the relationship between vikings from different areas meeting in far away lands? Cultural similarities were sufficient to keep an amicable relationship or to give an example, someone from Gotland seen others from the Feröes as alien as someone from Egypt?

And a long shot for the end: was there ever a viking circumnavigation of Europe? If yes, was it an "accident" or a conscious decision to do it?

It makes some sense for European-made maps with the north star being a visible part of the night sky, but what about the Arabic, Chinese and other, closer to the equator societies? Did they make their maps with North pointing up?