1H-Swords are very ineffective against Chainmail (I am refering to the chainmail, riveted version like the lorica hamata). I read many opinions and watched some stress-test videos and it seems very very unlikely, that a 1H-Sword could do damage to Chainmail. Perforation is also very unlikely, unless hit with max strenght with a pointy sword in proper condintion (ergo: somebody standing still.. not exactly what a battle looks like). God, it seems even that the most damage you could have, was trauma damage (but then, why in the first place don't use a mace or hammer?).

So my question ist, why for so many centuries was the sword predominant, although it was very ineffective against chainmail (riveted) as opposed to axes or even spears... ?

We have this cultural image of a pre-1960's couple remaining virgins until their wedding night with chaperoned dates and shotgun-wielding fathers. I'm curious how accurate that picture really is.

How would an average young heterosexual couple, perhaps aged about 20, in pre-World War II America (maybe late 19th/early 20th centuries) have approached sexual intimacy? What would their expectations surrounding intimacy be with each other? Especially as their relationship grew more serious. Let's say they were in a loving relationship and on trajectory for an engagement and then marriage. Would they both have the expectation that there would be absolutely no physical intimacy between them until their wedding night? Or would they expect a gradual increase in physical intimacy as their relationship progressed. Perhaps they would see sexual intercourse as off-limits until marriage because the lack of reliable contraception, but would they expect other things such as cuddling, "feeling up", manual sex, or oral sex before their marriage? If so, at what point along their timeline of courting, engagement, and marriage would they expect those things? Is there a point where they would expect to progress to intercourse, perhaps after their engagement? Would they talk about this with each other, as couples often do today?

What would their families think? Would parents try to prevent them from having time alone? Or would the parents have the opinion (as most parents do today), of "Oh, they're engaged, it's all right if they engage in sexual intimacy as long as they don't risk an unplanned pregnancy." Or even, "it's all right if they're having intercourse because they're already engaged and going to be married next month anyways".

And how might this differ between social classes, by region, by religion, etc.?

I realize this was such a taboo at that time, that there might not even be good reliable sources about it. Perhaps only people's personal journals or letters detailing their thoughts and personal experiences.

Something that is notable about Communist* movements in various countries is that they, at least early on, often enjoyed grassroots support from much of society. Much of the Chinese peasantry, for example, seems to have genuinely supported and benefited from the early policies of the Communist Party (such as formerly landless peasants receiving their own land) which helped them to gain power. It is also worth noting that, egregious crimes and abuses of power notwithstanding, many communist regimes seem to have resulted in a general increase in standards of living for a lot of the population (though obviously there were also times when their policies inflicted immense suffering) which makes it understandable why some of the population would have supported them despite the generally authoritarian nature of these regimes.

None of this seems to be true of the Khmer Rouge. Their ignoble reign seems to have made virtually no positive contribution to the livelihood of anyone who fell under their control. Regarding the peasants whom they envisioned as leading the perfect form of human existence, they seem to have placed extreme demands of increased productivity upon them from the outset as well as forcefully and radically restructuring rural society to be under their firm control with little to no room for independent living. Meanwhile urban populations were forcefully deported from their homes, subject to immense violence and forced to live on farms where starvation awaited them. For Cambodia as a whole, a period of less than four years saw some one quarter of the population dead, about half of them seemingly having been executed.

I guess what I'm asking is how such a regime could come to power in the first place? It is my understanding that even the worst of governments can't take over a country without having some kind of firm support base, but I simply can't imagine anybody in Cambodia thinking that the Khmer Rouge were good for them. We're they a lot less...radically crazy during the civil war than they were after capturing Phnom Penh? (The Chinese Communists seem to have become progressively less conciliatory towards people deemed class enemies as time went on, being rather more moderate during the war). Was there any major part of Cambodian society for whom the Khmer Rouge government was beneficial?

The Khmer Rouge also seem to have lacked many of the trappings of power seen in other Communist regimes. There was, for example, no major personality cult, most people didn't even know who Pol Pot was at first, and the entire party ruled in secret, presenting itself simply in the guise of "Angkar." What was it that put the Khmer Rouge in a position to take over Cambodia, given how their political programme of essentially enslaving the entire population on state-owned farms could hardly have been appealing to many?

*(Lumping such an idiosyncratic regime as the Khmer Rouge under the communist umbrella seems debatable, especially given that most of what they stood for - disdain for the urban working classes, reverence for an idealised Angkor Empire, extreme nationalism and ethnosupremacism, agrarianism and a belief that the peasantry are not only a revolutionary class but should be the only class - seems to fly right in the face of Marxism, but they seem to have at least originally considered themselves communists and are conventionally referred to as such.)

I have seen a few posts about getting BA vs BS, but which is more useful? Also, which Minor assists the degree best? A Foreign Language like German?

I would love to focus on Hellenistic Ancient Egypt but I have no clue where to start or who to ask.

• Thrusting would not be an effective way to exploit gaps, given the broad point on many messer.
• The Mordhau would have been difficult to execute, as the thick blade would not have allowed for a comfortable, and secure grip.
• Using a dagger would have been extremely risky, without full armour, to keep you protected while closing in; something that your typical landsknecht would not sport.
• As far as I know, guns of the time could not penetrate plate armour, as long as you are not hitting a weak spot, like the visor.

Is there anything, that doesn't seem completely suicidal, that a landsknecht could have done, were he to meet a warrior, in full plate armour, on the battlefield?

A recently released EP by the millennial artist Semler includes the lyric, "My mom turned 18 in the 1960s and she doesn't remember Stonewall." This made me curious, so I asked my own mother, who is about the same age. She didn't know about them at the time either.

But two data points don't lead to a conclusion. So my question is: How well-known were the Stonewall riots when they happened?

Looking back now, we understand them as a turning point for LGBT rights. But during the week of June 28 – July 3, 1969, would the average American outside the NYC area have had a chance to hear about them? If they were well-known, what was the attitude from contemporary Americans about what was happening?

It seems like most of Henry’s health problems stemmed from his leg after he injured it. If it caused him so much pain and was very infected, why not cut it off?

I had a teacher pose a question asking whether the class believed that the US were only willing to commence with the nuclear bombings because of anti-Japanese sentiments that would not have been shared with their European counterparts. Can this claim be supported or disproved in any way?

Hi, I’ve recently been looking into the history my ethnic history and realised I’ve only ever heard the history of my West African slaves from when they arrived in the Carribean to now, something I feel I need to look into, don’t believe it’s fair on their legacies to focus solely on only that part of African-Carribean history.

I get the feeling this question may be broad and without a specific answer, but the internet seems to only say that pre-capture, the ancestors of enslaved Africans were from conquered tribes who were then sold to colonisers and taken elsewhere, is this the full picture or is there more to it?

Were the ancestors of the enslaved mainly tribal? Were some part of larger West African society, in cities and such? What would often occur for these groups of Africans to end up captured and sold? Why would they have been conquered if they were tribal? Who would they have been really.

I’d love to know anything about this part of history I feel isn’t really talked about much, or at least isn’t seen as important enough in comparison to what happened to their enslaved descendants, thanks to anyone who could help me understand 👍🏼

like legitimately how much did their government have to brainwash the population to start all the hate that caused a mass genocide. what tactics did they employ and how did they start? was it a gradual progression or not? it's hard for me to imagine a whole country turning on themselves and their neighbors can a historian shed a little light on how this started on a social scale what was shown and told to convince people that Jewish people were so abhorrent that led to the atrocities committed against them.

If the Old Testament is canon, why aren't the rest of Jewish texts up to that point also canon?

I should point out that I am not Jewish and have little knowledge of what those texts would be but being raised as a Catholic, I always wondered why we seemed to ignore all the other Jewish texts that might provide more context.

Apologies if this isn't the right sub. Over the last fifteen years, I've been documenting a family's experiences in China (1920s to 1980) as a hobby. I have a growing pile of mostly notebooks with my notes, figures, and drawings, and physical/digital pictures as well as audio files from interviews. Some day I hope to write historical fiction and maybe some magazine type articles based on this research. My problems are that 1) There's too much to keep lugging this stuff around. 2) Finding specific information is terribly time consuming. 3) I'm worried that it could all disappear in a fire. 4) I still have some sentimental attachment to some of the notebooks.

Could someone point me in the right direction for how I can organize, digitize, and store this stuff? A book or method? Do professionals keep original copies/notebooks or is there a time when you don't need them anymore?

Thank you in advance!

I am looking for any information on secret societies that may have been active in Italy during the Renaissance (the 14th - 16th centuries). I am particularly looking for groups that may have been involved in the Republic of Florence, or Italy more broadly, but I am also open to researching groups that would have been active across Europe during that time period. I am most curious about what their aims and methods of achieving them might have been. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

Related, it would be interesting to understand why decision makers aren't held to similar standards as a traditional jury. Are there costs/benefits we've weighed as a nation, such that this is the logical outcome? For example, if a juror were to indicate their opinion in advance, they would likely be disqualified from serving. Also, it's not obvious to me that the public can trace a jury trial's outcome back to each juror's independent vote, right?

Usually it was the other way around, for obvious reasons. Did anyone try to cross the wall towards the east? Perhaps for ideological reasons?

The quote is taken from Lisa Feldman Barrett's How Emotions Are Made, a work of popular science that describes her research into the construction of emotions, as opposed to emotional universals.

Do we have much testimony about the kinds of facial expressions ancient Romans were prone to show?