My understanding of the Legions is that they had specialists for various jobs, and were kind of similar to the U.S./British military in that regard. Except, in this case, they had specialists specifically for things like torture, marching songs, etc.

New troops would be stuck with "dirty jobs" as well. But it doesn't make much sense to me that some barely 20 year old fighter could be so skilled as to create two giant walls around Alesia, bridges, or siege engines - At least, not ones that are as effective as Rome's seemed to be.

After watching the likes of pirates of the Caribbean again it got me thinking, What was life really like aboard pirate ships (and similar sailing ships of the era)? Did they cook? What was the food like? What about toilet and sleeping facilities? I know scurvy was common before the use of limes aboard but what else did they eat and what about fresh drinking water? I’d love to know.

I've read nitobes soul of japan and he said at the end that one of the main reasons why japan changed so much after they opend the borders at 1968 is that the honor cant stand it when someone is looking down on them. But another author said that bushidō didnt have such a huge impact on japan because it wasnt that well-kown as nitobe thought it was. So was the bushidō actually so important or not? (Sorry for grammatical mistakes)

Or was it some kind of proto/pseudo one party state of the southern democrat party?

I'm thinking of the 12th to 14th century if "medieval" is too broad.

would armies in that period have had people to stitch up the men if they got hit by an arrow or sword and didn't just die immediately?

I'm thinking about like clothing, architecture, furniture, musical instruments. Would people of the time generally just assume the material culture of any place and time looked like their place and time?

I was thinking about this while playing FIFA yesterday. England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are all independent "nations" for soccer tournaments. Hell, even Gibraltar competes independently, and it has approximately 1/3 the population of the American suburb where I live.

Yet for most sports at the Olympics (and other major international competitions), athletes from the UK compete as a part of Team Great Britain (sorry, Northern Ireland). What in history led to the UK consolidating some national sports and keeping others separate?

I know there is some prohibition on non-Muslim troops on Muslim soil (though I can find no evidence of it? Very strange) but the Saudis accepted non-Muslim troops during the Gulf War in 1991 so I don't see why it was such a big deal.

Curious, just read a bit of the Viking Sagas and it's really fascinating. They mention a land of flat stones, a long full of huge good trees (that they were known to go to to get timber), and further south (Most people say Newfoundland) a land of wine (Aka vineland, or Vinland).

A viking settlement was found at the tip of Newfoundland ( L'Anse aux Meadows ) ... I can't help but imagine that as with happened in later centuries that these early explorers/colonizers took atvantage of the resources at hand, but this is all speculation.

Is there any evidence of this in the record? Ofc I barely scratched the surface, but am absolutely FASCINATED with this and the absolute powerhouse the Vikings were around 1000 AD; I would like to know primarily why these sites were abandoned. If someone could straighten this out, that would be awesome! Thanks!

Dang that's a long title. And its a hefty one.

PTSD really only became an official term in the 1980's.

I'm looking mostly at different military generals and their views of their "seasoned" soldiers through history. Anyone from Patton to Julius C-.

When I hear (in 2021), that troops have PTSD and emotional/mental issues following combat, I think "well duh, of course...". But I'm wondering if that sentiment is as prevalent today as it was as, lets say, back in the Punic Wars.

This also wraps in a HUGE question in the history of psychology which is -- "How sympathetic towards emotional/mental disorders has society been since their emergence?"

We can be sympathetic all we want, but the effects of war on the mind play a massive part in how a unit behaves. So how were these effects dealt with and viewed through military history?

If this question seems enormously open ended (there's probably a whole textbook on this question), then I'd love to hear how maybe specific nations or cultures have viewed this issue. Maybe not the entirety of society as a whole.

For anyone answering, I thank you SO much. This has been one of my BIGGEST questions since starting to learn about military history.

If you need me to be more specific, I will gladly try to narrow it down. It's difficult for me to articulate this concept because it is so large, but I would like some guidance on where to start with this subject.

So, Hitler's plans for conquest and how he imagined an ideal nazi society are rather common knowledge but what about the other Axis powers? I ask two specific questions.

1.What were Mussolini and Hirohito realisticly hoping to achieve during their lifetime?

2. What were their ultimate end goals? Imperial Japan/Fascist Italy achieved everything it wanted to achieve, defeated everyone it wanted to defeat, has all the resources it needs and gets to run it's ideal society unopossed. How did Hirohito and Mussolini expect a world like this to look like?

Hi, I’m writing an MA thesis on the various kingdoms that arose after the “fall” of the Western Roman Empire c. 476, and wondered if anyone could point me in the direction of some good primary sources that I could read.

I’m not trying to answer whether or not the “barbarians” caused the fall of the empire, or whether it was already in the process of collapse, but rather that, although they were not Roman in name, the peoples and the kingdoms that arose were really a continuation of Roman traditions and ideals.

I’m currently working my way through Gregory of Tours, Jordanes, and Procopius, but wondered if anyone had any thoughts on the matter?

Much appreciated!

I was recently talking to a teacher from my school who had worked in Saudi Arabia for a couple of years. He is muslim, and I asked him about the ban on non muslims entering Mecca. He told me that he'd had this same conversation with someone he knew in Saudi, and that this bloke had told him that "there are still Arab polytheists in Mecca". He said the conversation was in English not Arabic (removing the possibility of the word "kuffar" or "mushrik" being used perjoratively) and that this man was specifically referring to the pre Islamic pagan religion. He said the conversation moved on from there.

He also said there was a rumour that the house of one of the false prophets who came after Mohammed was preserved in perfect condition in Riyadh by his descendants.

So, reddit, is there any evidence for persistence of Arab pagan cults in Mecca (or anywhere else), in the sense of active worship (not simply praying to face the Ka'aba, fasting or circumnambulation).

The Dutch Colonial Empire was a major colonial power in the Colonial Era. Despite Britain seizing the Cape Colony during the French Revolutionary Wars they still maintained their power to some extent. Were they not powerful enough to be able to demand land in Africa? If so, what exactly caused their decline?

Did American POWs pray to Jesus while in Japanese camps,did imperial Japan know about Christianity,what were their views on it?

I'm playing Imperator Rome as Bohemia and I reguarly find myself with trade requests from Carthage. Would this be at all accurate?

It seems like the P-51 Mustang and the other equivalents at the time used mainly mostly multiple machines guns, like the M2 browning. Even moving into the Korean War, it seems like the F-86 still uses M3 machine guns, with the MIG-15 having autocannons and regular machine guns. However, it seems like basically all modern fighters use one single fast firing Rotary cannon, F-18, F-16,F-15, using what seems to be the M61 cannon with a fast firing rate or 6000rpm, with only the most F-35 braking from this trend(with only the A version having a built in a 25mm cannon). Even the Russian jets like the Su-35 have one single fast firing 30mm cannon. On top of that, it seems like all the jets have basically a bare minimum amount of ammunition, with at best at most 3 seconds a firing time.

Most people I've talked to said that the decline of the dogfighting and the air to air gunnery was the missile, however, I've also heard some say that there was an overlap when missile weren't reliable enough to depend on, yet good enough to carry, with the gun still being used often. Around when did the countries of the world switch from multiple machine gun armaments' on their fighter jets, to one single fast firing cannon?

It's just that I heard once that the West Africans thought the Europeans were going to eat them from a friend and I'm wondering if that's true.

Particularly, did Scottish witch hunts differ greatly from British and European witch hunts due to local superstitions? And were fairies and elves seen as separate to witches, or was all magic considered diabolical?