Taiwan at the time was very close to Japan, China and Korea which for the Europeans was a great place for trading. So it probably would have been valuable to the Europeans. I am aware that the Dutch tried to set up colonies but left and it failed. But later on other colonial powers like the Spanish who already had a colony in the Philippians, the British who just liked stuff and also had colonies and even the French who had Indochina. Especially the UK, they had lots of influence on China who were probably to weak to kick out the British out of Taiwan considering that they were in the "century of humiliation". Even Germany could have temporarily obtained it as they seemed to like having colonies in the pacific and no one else had Taiwan (from a European perspective). I don't see many disadvantages for the European powers to colonize Taiwan but they didn't really colonize Taiwan did they? As far as i'm aware the British, French, Germans or Spanish didn't even try to colonize Taiwan. Why?

I’m searching for papers exploring the tradition of preserving Christian bodies/skeletons in wax or other materials, (eg St Victoria in Rome) and have hit a blank. If you can recommend any please let me know.

My main focus of study is Neolithic plastered skulls but I am trying to interpret it in a wider context, so tbh other forms of preservation (excluding PNG and Oceanic skulls) could also be useful.

I am especially searching for the use of materials that are precious in themselves. Thanks

I know that one of the things they did was make people who were Jewish stitch a Star of David onto their clothes, but how did they enforce this? How did they know who was Jewish?

This seems so...odd. In the early 1930s they ordered 4 Carden-Lloyd tankettes. They experimented on these and they would eventually evolve into the Tancik vz. 33. However, one of these prototypes they gave to the Shah of Iran: why?

And is it possible to do a similar thing to Gaelic, Irish, manx and and Cornish today to save these languages?

I'm referring to his use of Marduk in his propaganda after his conquest of Babylon, btw. To what extent was there cross-pollination of the various gods of Mesopotamia with the proto-Iranian peoples, such as Cyrus? Would this also apply to the gods of Assyria?

We consider national expansion and annexations as controversial in modern times. Were there any nations who had a different opinion amongst the people from one amongst their leaders?

I’ve been obsessed with the incredible podcast called ‘The History Of English’, by Kevin Stroud. In particular, an episode I listened to recently contained a detailed description of a game of trading between two people that emerged in the 1300’s in England, involving a third person and a kitty of money apparently called ‘new fair’. Eventually it became known as ‘hand-in-cap’, giving us the word ‘handicap’ as regards horses and golf, and applied to people in the 20th century.

As a maths and data geek I am astonished at the brilliantly simple design of the game that incentivises all participants to do their best to establish a fair trade arrangement.

Can anyone tell me more about it? I’m finding it very hard to get any more info from the net - plus I cannot establish anywhere that it was originally called ‘new fair’.

After slavery ended in the United States, how long was it before native Africans willingly immigrated to the United States? Were there willing African immigrants in the North before slavery ended? Were Northern Africans immigrants differintiated from Sub Sahran African immigrants?

It seems that Liu Shaoqi fell out of Mao grace very quickly and was treated worse than other leaders that just criticized Mao. Was there more to it? Was it becouse of power held by him?

Besides his identity as the driver and being known for influencing history significantly, there really wasn’t anything else that I could find about him. Not his family, cause of death, or whether he actually felt guilty or not.

Title. But I’ve been interested in the Stalin-era of the USSR for some time, and out of the works I’ve been looking at to start with Kotkin’s work on Stalin really stood out to me as impressive and all-encompassing. I’ve watched nearly all of his lectures and am about to buy his books, but I wanted to make sure this would be a good starting point for my real deep diving into Soviet history. So, is this a good start or have those angry YouTube comments calling him a reactionary historian true?

I’ve always wondered this, whenever I consider the fact that most of the colonizers had probably never left their country, which though they can get warm probably not that warm (especially during the Little Ice Age), and then suddenly they land in moist, jungly, and scorching terrain—how difficult was the adjustment, and what, if any, coping mechanisms were there? As someone, of European descent who lives in a continental climate, who sweats really easy, this is always my first thought. I can’t imagine any European colonizer, whether it be in Mexico, the Caribbean, Brazil, or wherever, as anything but just sweating themselves into a puddle all the time, and just how gross they must have been, especially with all the clothes and armor. Was it something they just ‘toughed’ out, or did they actually have some way of dealing with it?

Sorry if this is a really broad question, but I can’t find a better way to put it. Thank you in advance!

If this question sounds familiar you may have also watched shad's video on it. I'm just curious was there any proof of people wielding shields and two handed at the same time?

Another way to ask the question is how far down did society go when the Roman Empire fell in the west, following way for the dark ages?

I realize I am seeing a lot of seemingly conflicting info on the general Mesoamerican view on gender and sexuality beyond sexual excess being bad.

Especially since the god of homosexuality was also the god of pleasure, would that therefore mean the mesoamericans did not condone these identities because they are associated with excess?