So I just finished reading 1666 by Rebecca Rideal. However, I read it as an audiobook, so lamentably, no footnotes.

What I'm focussed on is completely tangential to the narrative so I assume it's probably not footnoted much anyway. It's concerned with the three men mentioned in the immediate aftermath of the Four Days Fight between England and The Dutch Republic, and I quote from the book:

“Privately, Pepys was not as pleased with the news as the king appeared to be. Following a brief meeting with the scientist Robert Hooke, who was compiling a list of naval terms and words for a book about The Universal Language by his friend Doctor (John) Wilkins. Pepys reflected on the state of the navy.”

I want that list. I want that list of naval terms so badly. But I cannot find it. Is anyone here a historian of the period who might be able to direct me in where to look?

Many thanks :)

Since Britain was in a greater bargaining position than China at that time, wouldn't it make sense for them to keep Hong Kong permanently instead of leasing it for 99 years? Why did they do this? Thanks!

Just curious, seems like something someone would make special note of at the time, at least someone looking at a calender, looking outside and saying, "Huh, it's been a thousand years since Jesus was born, that seems sigifigant."

Over the past few years, there has been a lot of backlash on the internet over the supposed 'blackwashing' of history. Black Achilles and Black Joan of Arc to name a few instances. And now it seems there is even more internet 'outrage' over a black samurai in feudal Japan.

My own first encounter with Yasuke was while reading a Japanese manga back in 2009, where he is depicted as one of the guards around Oda Nobunaga. Of course, I knew that many Africans were brought by Europeans to the far east and some had even become soldiers fighting in the army of the Kingdom of Tungning. But this had been the first time I had ever heard of an African Samurai. And I initially dismissed him as a historical oddity.

And now here we are 12 years later, where the story of Yasuke has gained far more publicity. And controversy. Some are crying out that 'Yasuke wasn't a Samurai!!!' or that he wasn't even a real person and didn't exist. Dismissing this story with the same disdain they had for Black Achilles and Black Joan of Arc. My question being, is that dismissal justified? Was Yasuke a real person? Could he be considered as a Samurai? Or is all the outrage justified?

Because I’d like to thank them!

I'm not a normal patron of this sub so I apologize if I've made any mistakes. I'm not a student and I read the sidebar. I've also already tried to research this on my own before turning to you all for more help.

When I was in the military, I was in a mounted unit called (at one point) The Lancers. I'm trying to find out more about how they (historical Lancers) operated. When I tried to look it up, I found Cavalry, Curriasers, Lancers, Dragoons, and a whole wack of other types of guys. It was a bit of information overload for me

As I understand it, there's the type of cavalry who fought on horseback and there's the type that rode horses to the area, then dismounted and fought on foot. I'm super curious about the latter group. Why did they work like that? What kinds of tasks was this best suited for versus the other type of cav? When they left the horses, how many dudes did they leave behind? How far away from the horses did they allow themselves to be?

So I guess I'm interested in Lancers specifically and the kind of cavalry that rides around but fights dismounted. I understand those may be two different types of soldier, but I'm having trouble telling them all apart. Any help or links would be greatly appreciated.

I understand summer break made sense in the agricultural past to free up labor, but where did a 1 week long spring break come from?

A couple weeks ago I had this thought and told my dad about it. He said I might be wrong but he saw my point of view. I still thought about this random question every now and then. So to answer the random question, I decided to ask. Would I be right or would I be in the wrong?

I feel like after the first couple dozen you'd have a good idea what they do. What was the purpose of hundreds of tests?

When I read about Roman emperors that were active around the time of Jesus' life and recently after I never see anything mentioned about Jesus. This is the central figure of one of the largest religions in the world and reading the history of the powers of the time he seems non existent. Was the life and death of Jesus an event that was not really impactful on contemporary Roman high society?

I know Thetis keeps Patroclus' body fresh, but how long does Achilles mourn over Patroclus during that time, and what does Achilles do with his body during it? Does Achilles not bath during that period, or was that just after killing Hector? And when does Achilles start eating again?

Just trying to get the timeline right! Thanks!

I think the traditional islamic narrative is that muhammed received the quran in a cave from the angel gabriel, and the fact that muhammed was illiterate is used as evidence that it came from god since it couldn't have been written by him.

I would expect there isn't much certainty on how the quran was written, but do historians have speculations on how it could've been written?

How plausible is it that a succesfull merchant in arabia such as muhammed was illiterate? is there reason to doubt his illiteracy?

Are there any literate individuals that could've helped/participated in the writing of the quran?

I've heard that the quran is a very impressive text in terms of its prose in the original arabic. Would it take a skilled writer to have written the quran? how hard were those to come by in arabia? I've heard that there was a literary/poetic tradition in arabia, presumably that would provide for a decent supply to skilled writers to have written the quran?

The propaganda demonized all of the Axis Powers, but considering the racially motivated internment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans, was the decision to use atomic weapons (twice) in Japan racially motivated?

How and why was that age chosen? Why not 16 or 24 or 20? Why is it 18 and how did western society come to that number?

Im not saying that PLC is crucial to understand history but cmon. We had (im polish) goddamn good cavalry,was one of the biggest economies for a time, basically were silos for western Europe and being one of the few nations to conquer Moscow. I think that austro-hungary, swedish empire or dutch have much more spotlight

There has been a lot of talk on this sub about castles and their different usages during WW2, but I was recently reminded that there aren't any castles in America. So European castles must have been as if out of fairytales, I could imagine walking the hills of Normandy and wondering whether knights and dragons are still around as well. Any records on how people responded?

I recently watched a lecture by L. Randall Wray in which he claimed that tally sticks were a form of money. He used this as a piece of evidence in a larger argument that money is essentially credit created by the government, not a representative store of value, as it would be under a gold standard type currency,

Tally sticks, from what I understand, are simply notches on two sticks signifying debtor and creditor. The sticks would then be matched up to make sure there was no swindling. The Encyclopedia of World Trade mentions that they were used for state financing. So I am interested to see if (1) they were actually a form of money and (2) how the monetary system functioned if it were a form of money.

Before that point, they form into two lines and run at each other, and hack and slash until one side loses.

I've been searching for any books about Mamluks but I didn't find that much So,do you guys know any books?