Hey, when reading about Ancient and Medival cultures, the religion is always the important part of people's lives. And that makes me wonder, were there any atheists back then? If so, how being irreligious affected their lives? Were they prosecuted or treated worst in anyway by others? If so, when it becomed more normalised for people to actually be openly atheist?

hello! i was thinking about how people say things like the pyramids in egypt were builded by slaves and this made me think of other huge building like the great wall of china. did china ever have lots of slaves? i know there were lot of different like countries and empires before there ever was modern china so i hope you know what i mean

How many thousands of years roughly did it take humans to go from cave drawings and making clicks, whoops and coughs to communicate to having things like parts of speech, consonants, spelling etc.?

Also if anyone could provide figures how many were there?

My knowledge of history is basically zero. I want to have the fundamentals down because I'm very interested in philosophy, and as I realize it, every single field of study is practically useless without history.

So what are some books or resources I should read to get to an average knowledge of history? I don't specifically care about a period or region, but I would appreciate it if it focused on Indian and Western history.

I have been very interested in the latter part of Byzantine history and was intrigued by this city. While most of Asia Minor fell to the Turkic invaders Philadelphia still stood. What was life like in a cut of Roman City? How did they maintain their independence surrounded by a Sea of Turkic Emirs? I am also incredibly confused on why the Roman Emperor Aided the Ottomans in sieging and eventually capturing the City in 1390.

I was listening to a talk by Robert Wilson where he casually claims Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake for smoking cannabis, which caused her to have her visions. The only information I could find about it elsewhere were from clickbait and stoner forums claiming that the ‘witching herbs’ she had access to were actually psychedelic and, potentially, cannabis.

As this seems like a bit of a stretch, I was wondering if it has any grounding at all? Also, how accessible and widespread (if at all) was cannabis or psychoactive drugs in medieval Europe?

It seems that there was a lot of open land with few white people (likely oppressors before and after slavery) on it in what we think of as the old west. To put my question another way, why did black people stay in the areas where law and society were not kind to them, i.e. areas with Jim Crow laws, areas with sundown laws, etc. ?

Many last names clearly had a literal meaning at some point. Robertson meant "son of Robert" and Miller was an occupation.

However, that is no longer the case. Take two hypothetical people for example: Tyler Robertson and Jane Miller. Tyler's dad is named Craig, and his grandfather is Joseph. Jane is an IT Manager, not a miller.

How and when did these names lose their original meaning, and become multi-generational family names instead?

I'm reading up on WWI and WWII in my history class and one thing I've noticed was how far behind the times Russia was during both wars (although it was more understandable during WWII, As the Soviet Union had just started), while I do know quite a bit about how bad it was for Russia during WWII, I haven't seen many examples of how bad Russia did during WWI, a time period I have no doubt would have been far, far worse for Russia. How far behind was Russia in terms of technology compared to everyone else fighting in WWI exactly?

The Oxford Illustrated History of Witchcraft and Magic" shows how in medieval Europe, society believed that practitioners of magic were wizards, usually depicted as priests or scholars, who could summon angels or demons and bend them to their will. Their powers were seen by society as dangerous and mysterious, and although they were often villainous, they were not always intrinsically evil.

By the 14th century, when the witch hunts began, there had already been a paradigm shift in how society viewed magical practitioners. Now the practitioners of magic are mainly women (either very young and beautiful or old and ugly) who make pacts with the devil. Alchemical symbols and astrology have been replaced by kitchen implements such as the cauldron and disgusting ingredients. Witches are considered a real threat to Christianity and society, justifying torture and execution. Practitioners of magic are seen by society, or at least by the authorities, as always harmful and deserving of extermination.

My question is, how and why did this paradigm shift occur concerning magic practitioners within the same Christian culture?

Why was successful Austrian imperial general such as Radetzky and Haynau sidelined after their success in defeating Sardinia and curbing the 1848 revolution?

Did other socialist countries like East German,Czechoslovakia and Vietnam support Soviet Union and Communist Afghanistan in anyway?