I have no idea how the Russians, the successor state of the USSR, explains to their citizens why they invaded sovereign nations. What is their spin on this to make this more palatable for their citizens to understand?

When compared to other European powers like France, England and Spain were did Venice get it supplies to build ships from? Was it ever hampered by lack of supplies to build it galleys,etc.?

Sources and further readings appreciated.

Is it true that the high price of timber in the Adriatic was a principle reason for the collapse of the Venetian naval power in the 16th century?

Romans have a thing against actors. They lived in ghettos. One of the worst things that people said about Nero was that he acted.

It's a given that the Romans hated actors but I want to know why. Hellenic culture didn't seem to have the same hang up. What about acting in the Latin context am I missing?

A book on the early history of mankind i have been reading named Mesopotamia the first civilisation somewhere around 3500 b.c.

Yet it also tells of a city, Çatal hüyük, with a trade network and religious shrines dating to about 6000 b.c. with an estimated population of 6000.

What Çatal hüyük missing to be called a civilization?

Im sure we have all learned how the ancient civilisations in the east have been responsible for lots of innovations (like paper, gun powder, numbers, etc.) but from the middle ages through the industrial revolution, most of the "new" inventions seemed to have come from Europe or more west than before. What caused these shifts west in innovation?

Bonus question: If places like india and china were economic powerhouses during the age of exploration, why didnt the industrial revolution begin there?

Sorry if this is a weird question, and I'm not sure if this is even the right place to ask this, but I remember being taught in school that African religion played a big role in the resistance of African societies to the big European colonial efforts - is this true?

One example we got given was the Maji Maji with its holy water and spirit priests - are there other examples like this?

Before 1964 and 1865, when the debates over segregation and slavery were at their hottest (I'm assuming), what reasons did people give in support of those institutions? I'm specifically interested in what religious (biblical) justifications may have been used.

Could someone summarize the the Historical and Social Setting of Arthur Wellesley's life.

This is probably a really easy question for a historian but it's something I've always wondered. Whites Europeans came to the USA which was already inhabited by brown Native Americans. The result is a white country. White Europeans also came to Mexico and South America. The result there is countries made up of brown "Latino" people. Why the difference? Why isn't the USA brown, or why isn't Mexico white?

Here is my theory right now, which is probably wrong. I think what we now call Latino is the result of White Europeans (Spaniards) breeding with the Native Americans. Maybe there were just many more Natives in Mexico and South America, and they mated with the Europeans more, whereas in America we cordoned them off to their own areas without mixing races. I'm probably completely wrong about this, so I'd love to be corrected or enlightened as to what actually happened.

Why is the burial of valuable objects and the devotion of labor to the construction of elaborate tombs so prevalent among ancient cultures? It seems grossly dysfunctional to waste wealth in this fashion.

I'm not trying to glorify Hitler or anything, but did he really want war with the European countries? The Rhineland and Sudentanland were unfairly taken from Germany at the end of WWI, and they had a large German population. It seems as if Hitler only wanted those territories back for the sake of having a reunified Germany.

If he wanted a war, in my opinion it would have only been with the Soviet Union, as he hated communism. He invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland to act as a buffer zone against it, so he could later charge in and invade the USSR.

But then France and Britain declare war on Germany for invading Poland, which surprises Hitler since they hadn't done anything before, so he is forced to declare war back. Did he create the massive German army just in case there was war, or did he set out knowing and wanting war?

What exactly did Hitler blame the Jews for? What of their lifestyle/religion/other factors did he use to 'authenticate' this claim? I assume he must have said something more than a blanket statement that the Jews were at fault in order to convince so many people that this was the case.

Wouldn't this have taken wagonfuls of salt? Wasn't salt a relatively valuable commodity to be wasting? Did they sow it by hand? Does it really work to keep land from being fertile? Are there any areas of the world still affected from this having happened in the past?