There seems to be this common belief that people in ancient times, or even just pre-Enlightenment, weren't too skeptical of supernatural acts and claims. This is often attributed to why so many people believed in myths, religion, magic, etc. Is it arrogant to say that these people before us just had a primitive knowledge of the physical world, so they believed in all these supernatural stories? Or has our trust in the sciences truly made us far more skeptical than ever before?

I'm currently reading Vietnam by Max Hasting and one thing that struck me is that the author, while quoting many testimonies by vietnamese people , says that he does not understand vietnamese and that he relies on translations.I myself I am guilty of this practice since I wrote my bachelor dissertation on the Afghanistan war without knowing a world of Phastu and relying almost escusivly on documents written in English. Do you think it's possible to do historical research without knowing the language relevant to the context? I'm talking about situations where many documents are in languages the historian knows but the protagonists of the events speak and write in a different idiom. For example could a German historian who doesn't understand a word of Russian do in depth research on operation Barbarossa?

I'd imagine it would be seen as god's punishment to the lower classes. And as the nobles and clergy spent most of their time inside and are told to have been quite pale - and therefore didn't suffer from skin cancer as much - I'd assume it only contriuted more to the idea that god prefers the clergy and nobles over the serfs.

Why did the Pope abolish the Trial by ordeal in 1215?

It’s not like anyone who committed the atrocities are alive today. People in America and Germany are pretty open about the genocides they committed. What’s wrong with Turkey?

I asked a similar question before, but while I got some interesting answer links they really didn't get at my core query, which in some ways is about how tactically similar or different mid-19th century conflicts in Western Europe and North America (the Crimean, American Civil, and various Prussian wars) were to the Napoleonic Wars, and where they stood relative to WWI. So some detail on that period would be much appreciated!

This is something that has always stood out to me. Most of the Roman emperors of the first two centuries seem to have had relatively few children, at least compared to the large family sizes that would have been common in those days. Looking at the first ten emperors (excluding the three from the post-Nero interregnum):

• Augustus: One daughter.
• Tiberius: Two sons.
• Caligula: One daughter.
• Claudius: Two sons, two daughters. Critiqued in ancient sources as a lustful womanizer.
• Nero: One daughter.
• Vespasian: Two sons, one daughter.
• Titus: One daughter.
• Nerva: No children.
• Trajan: No children.
• Hadrian: No children.

After this Emperors start to regularly have more kids.

All in all, it seems like the early Roman Emperors had a pretty low fertility rate, especially since many of the listed kids died in infancy. This is even more confusing to me because of the high importance of succession.

So why did early Roman Emperors not have a lot of kids?

And if so why was there no Islamic war of reformation?

I mean at the state and local level of course. This has been bothering me for sometime now and I just can't find a clear answer. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Was it the case that the planets were just named that because the god's names were just used for important things like planets or did they think that like Jupiter(the planet) was actually Zeus?

I searched this but there were no results, the only ones I could find were questions regarding why ancient people named planets after gods

The empires ofSouth and Meso America were much larger and seemingly more centralized and militarily advanced than those in the north. Obviously I understand that the Inca had just undergone a brutal civil war making them even more susceptible to conquest and the Aztecs had many hated vassal and tributary groups that joined the conquistadors. And lastly disease was a huge aspect to the fall of both groups to Europeans/ Americans. Though one could say the conflict between the British and French and later Americans and British kept them expansion low, the Portuguese were in near the Spanish with Brazil. The terrain of North America would seem less hostile and difficult than meso america and definitely the peaks of the Incan empire. Did the more centralized and more technologically development of the empires make them weaker. The Incan roads made travel in the empire easy for them but it made it far easier for the Conquistadors to move horses, troops, cannon and ammunition than it would’ve been without it. South and Central America seem larger than Latin America though north and south than east and west. And though both groups died of diseases like small pox, the conquest of the north took hundreds of more years, the native groups existed as independent nations such as the Iroquois confederacy, Tecumseh’s confederacy,and waged war such as by the Seminoles and runaway slaves, king Philips war, and battles such as little big horn and the massacre of wounded knee. Many native groups adapted European arms and in the case of horses even more so than the Europeans/ Americans . Yet the native populations are larger down south and including mixed/mestizo populations of people with some native blood it’s even larger.

He says that he cannot drink fermented wheat or grape. Another character says that it is okay, because mead is from honey. Ahmad ibn Fadlan then proceeds to drink it.

Is this Hollywood history or is there some basis to the misconception about the Islamic prohibition on alcohol?

Many multiethnic postcolonial states still use their former colonial language as a lingua franca or official language, such as English in India and Singapore, or English and French in much of Africa. So why didn’t Dutch survive as a lingua franca after decolonization in similarly multiethnic Indonesia?

I grew up in the Great Lakes region and I've often wondered about the history of the region before colonization.

In particular, I want to know why there was no civilization with permanent structures in the Great Lakes region and St. Lawrence Seaway prior to the Colonization of the Americas?

I've been led to believe that the settlements here were all either temporary or not 'built to last' like the famous central american civilizations. If true, why was that?

Was there trade, communication, marriage etc. between the Saxons living in England and the Saxons that still lived in Saxony in the first few decades/centuries following their immigration or were they completely cut off from their homeland? We’re talking early medieval ages here so I don’t expect them to be on the phone with their distant Saxon family but I’m wondering if they were at least aware of each other. There’s not a ton of information about this era so I thought this would be a good place to ask. Thanks!