For the last two years I have been trying to get my hands on my Great Grandfathers' 'Foglio Matricolare' or military file from Italy. My main objective out of all of this is just to know what he did during the Great War. I know of his life here in the United States but no one in the family knows of his military service. Well, let me start off with some facts...

-I have a copy of his birth certificate, so I know for a fact his birth location, province, parents, birth date and birth name are accurate (unless it was typed wrong)

-I have a picture of him in his uniform, so I know he served... me, not being an Italian WW1 Uniform expert by any means, I had multiple people of varying degrees of expertise look at his picture and they came up with the following assumptions...

1. almost everyone agrees his uniform hat is a basic infantry hat ... but now the confusion comes in.
2. people were split on his pants because he had pockets on the sides and they were tailored high and tight as if he was in a cavalry unit or an officer
3. everyone believes his boots were alpine or mountain boots they way they are wrapped
4. his coat has pockets which they believed were mostly reserved for NCOs or Officers and his lapel has some sort of insignia or metal on it but it is hard to tell

With that said, when I first contacted the archives from the province he was born in, they told me he was on their 'Liste di Leva' with a date of 1/12/1915. They told me to contact the Regional Archives which I did. Long story short, I contacted the village archives, Province archives, Regional Archives, General Army Archives in Rome and Rome State Archives all coming back with negative results. I would assume (and they as well) either he wasn't an officer or his record was lost, damaged or misplaced.

In any case, he was born in Pesaro e Urbino. The closest unit to where he was born was Brigata Pesaro 239th/240th Regiment. They in turn along with Brigata Grosseto eventually formed the 52nd Alpini Division. I feel like that might explain the possible mismatch of the uniform? There are a few other Regiments and Cavalry units I could mention but they are further away from his hometown than the one I previously mentioned.

Now, is it safe to assume he would have possibly been in the 239/240 Regiment and then the 52nd Alpine Division? Is there some other archive I should contact or website I should look at? I am at a complete loss and really don't know where else to look for information. Thank you very much.

Newfoundland merged with Canada in 1949 because it was having economic issues as a colony separate from Canada. Why did it take so long for Newfoundland to join Canada? Was there a specific reason that Newfoundland stayed separate for so long? Did Newfoundlanders think of themselves as being culturally distinct from Canada?

Why is he known for apprently sorting the punctuality of the Italian rail network? Is it a myth or was he a transport genius?

Were the monasteries as bad as claimed by the government and Henry VIII's commissioners, or were they saying that to justify a policy they had already decided upon?

My Question is Why did Yuan Shao lose the battle when he had a vastly superior force then what Cao Cao could muster, how could he be defeated? when he had very talented general his command and again his superior army?. What were the causes of his defeat and later death? Thank you in advance.

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Is it known what languages Jesus spoke? Does anyone have any examples of what they look or sound like? Also, are they related to any modern day languages? I think it would be very interesting to know what languages he may have spoken, and what they sound like, with him being the figure of the largest religion worldwide.

I want to read up more on the supposed historiographical debate on this topic, but I don't even know how to learn more, so I was hoping I could be corrected that there is no serious debate, or directed to some literature about it at least.

The fortress at Van is far from Elamite territory, and reading up on the Elamites, they would seem to be a small minority at that point, in Persia.

I'm reading Mary Beard's The Fires of Vesuvius (my first Mary Beard book and I'm utterly captivated) and was interested to learn that most ordinary folks ate out at street shops. I'm sure we all saw those beautiful "fast food" shops that were recently excavated at Pompeii! How did this wider phenomenon of doing things that we would take for granted as happening inside the home (cooking, bathing, eating) change cultural ideas of privacy? As modern people, would Roman notions of privacy vs public life seem strange to us?

I was listening to the Revolutions podcast series on the French Revolution and in one of the first episodes, Mike Duncan (the podcaster) compares Ancien Régime France to the declining country of Poland-Lithuania, which would only survive a few more years until the Third Partition of Poland in 1795. He goes so far as to say that France was in such disorder and financial ruin in the run up to the French Revolution other European Powers had begun to imagine a Europe without France.

Was there ever any real plans by, say England or Prussia, to annex French land in a similar fashion as the Partitions of Poland?

I've been reading conflicting reports as to whether Buddhism has idols in it or not.

The teachings of Buddha himself seem to directly contradict attachment to anything physical, certainly to forms meant to represent the divine. The entire theme is a rejection of the transient—sort of discovery of oneness through negation of all else.

I read somewhere that they actually never had it, rather it was something which was introduced with the Greek invasion under Alexander of Macedonia, and later that Buddhists saw these formidable statues of the Greeks and began to imitate them.

I was wondering if anyone had more knowledge than I on this question.

Thanks!

A friend of my asserted yesterday that the US came almost as close to war with Britain as with Germany during WWI. I'm wondering if this is true. I'm aware that Anglo-American relations got pretty tense over the blockade, so my question is basically: how tense? Was there a real risk the relationship would break down?

Was Aurangzeb the reason to Mughal Empire's downfall or did the Empire's state start deteriorating even before Aurangzeb started to rule?

Although bread lines are commonly used as arguments against the Soviets, they were most intense under bad economic policies and other crises (early years, ww2, the 80s etc) I was wondering if such instances occured, and on what scale, during periods such as the Khrushchev thaw

Basically the title

I am studying history right now and especially Government of India act 1935.

It seems to include many things on which ultimate Indian constitution is based on. And Independence movements were also picking up pace acter 1930s what was the plan for British Empire in India ? Was it ultimately "pack up and leave" or more like Canadian dominion status ? Because i have heard contradictory statements that Freedom fighters were asking for full independence and the Empire was discounting a dominion status to India as a colony.