I was thinking about video game ideas and I thought a game that takes place during a war in Polynesia would make a good game which made me realize that despite the fact that I’ve read a lot about Polynesia, I do not know a lot about their warfare.

I’m interested in things like were wars primarily between chiefs or between islands, what were their weapons like, how did they view the concept of war, etc.

Jairus Banaji's 'Theory as history' mentions an instance from the late 1800s where Groundnut (Peanut) produced in southeast Maharashtra (India) was exported to Marseille and Italy where it was used in the manufacture of Olive oil. Is this still the case? to what effect is it used? and if it isn't the case why did it stop? Is there not enough production of peanuts in Italy that would have made this more economical? I understand that since India was ruled by the British back then so that might have made it cheaper but to what extent really?

Researching, for personal reasons, into roman healers from that era and from that region and am currently looking for leads. I don't have alot of information but I have a little on healers, a little on tara but I'm trying to find where they cross paths. So I guess anything on tara between the 1st and 5 century maybe?

I recently started doing genealogy research and came across an ancestor on my white dad’s side who was fully African (worked it out using DNA testing, grouping ect).

I discovered this African ancestor was born in London, 1751, and was given to the Foundling Hospital as a baby, she was given the name Charlotte Mills and I have no clue who her parents were, only that they were West African genetically.

Something about her story as a foundling child, a lone black woman in early Georgian London gets me very interested in a somber way, I have many Carribean enslaved people on my mums side and to know of this woman forgotten in my dad’s tree by generations of increasingly whiter descendants is quite a sad thought.

I want to know who her parents might’ve been, what lives were like in London at that time for black people. I’m assuming my ancestor was given to the Foundling Hospital as her parents or mother couldn’t provide for her, would Charlotte’s parents have been slaves working in the UK for rich people, if so where would they have come from? Were slaves in the UK taken directly from Africa or from Carribean plantations? Were they both maybe free?

Thanks for anyone who could give me some insight into who Charlotte’s parents would’ve most likely been, and the treatment of black people in general at that time in London, never really learnt too much about slavery anywhere else but the Carribean and the Americas.

I see all these memes on r/HistoryMemes about how stupid it was for BOTH Napoleon and Hitler to invade Russia in the winter. So why did he do that if he already knew that Napoleone did that and failed because of that? It just all seems so stupid knowing how harsh (-10 F) Russian winter is.

During the Second World War, thousands of British children were evacuated from major cities to the countryside to protect them from bombing. In depictions of this in fiction like ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Goodnight Mr Tom, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and Summerland’, children are often placed with guardians who either don’t know they’re supposed to be taking a child, are patently unsuited to looking after children or both. Does this reflect reality or is it just a trope to create a dramatic awkward coming together? Were children placed with people without prior warning, did families have to volunteer to take children or were they assigned, and were single men and eccentric elderly people among those who took care of children during this period.

I have recently become interested in the origin of the English people and particularly the Anglo-Saxon 'origin' of the peoples.

I am looking for audio book recommendations on the subject, something to walk the dog to, preferably something that is looking to challenge the orthodox Bead lead narrative of an 'invasion' and large scale population displacement.

Hopefully you can help!

I've done research on this but many different sources say different things.

my question is:

do historians get whatever they can about an event without verifying it like going into it in depth?

or they actually verify whether something is true or not?

(excluding obvious things)

I'm working on a project set in Mongolia in either the late 13th or early 14th century. This is well after the initial conquest, and from the preliminary reading I've done (mostly just wikipedia) it seems that there was a robust bureaucracy in place by this time. They had a "pony express" style courier system, they administered the Silk Road, and it seems that religious freedom was the norm throughout most of the empire and the khanates that it later became. It seems that in general, it was peaceful and prosperous for almost a century.

Anyway, I can't find many resources on this period. There are endless books about the conquests and wars, but seemingly almost nothing about daily life. I want to know how people lived throughout the empire, what kind of values they had. I want to know about their architecture and fashion, and their food, drink, and recreation. I realize that there was probably no single "Mongol culture," given how huge the empire was. But the lack of this information (and the seeming lack of interest in it, compared to the wars) is disappointing, and is really hampering my research for this project. Any help is much appreciated.

For generations, we took care of the dead ourselves, family, close neighbors, community members rallied and provided burial services for the common man. Yet in the late 1800's it started changing and in most parts of western society we now outsource all this to strangers. Today it is rare to find (aside from some religions) community death care and most if not all is handled by professionals, why did this happen ?

To add to this topic, why did embalming become such an accepted practice, these two seem to have sprung up together, did one feed off the other, or did one cause the other ?

I've been reading about the French Battleships that sailed to Dakar and Algeria when France capitulated however, I don't understand why the French didn't want their battleships to be apart of the allied cause after France fell? Why did they want to fight against the British rather than giving the ships to allies?

Was the security still managed by the military? I know it was all still very important information.

Id I understand what I'm reading correctly, the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project was formed to handle the military aspects covered by the Manhattan Project, while the AEC continued in the civilian direction.

I also know the FBI did extensive background checks for the AEC, but what about day-to-day? Were civilians in charge of keeping the laboratories secure? Or did soldiers still manage security for the civilian scientists like they had when Los Alamos first formed?

Please let me know if I've gotten anything terribly wrong in my base knowledge here, my usual historical knowledge falls about 1700 years short of this. And if you have any suggestions for books or documentaries on the AEC, especially its early operations, I'd appreciate that!

I'd also love any book or documentary recommendations on the general ramp up of the Cold War from the end of the war to Stalin's death. (I've already watched "1945-1953: From World War to Cold War).

If I wanted to do some research for Black History Month, are there any archives (digital or otherwise) for newspapers, magazines, or comics that were made by and catered to the African-American communities in the United States?

Hello everyone, I am looking for good quality secondary sources covering the history of North/Central Asia. The time period can range from anywhere between prehistory to today. It has been quite hard for me to find legitimate sources covering the Early Antiquity of central Asia, the Mongol Empire, the Russian empire, the Soviet Union, etc. Many times over the books I have found were mostly summaries of an array of English secondary sources which ignore the works of Russian and Mongolian scholars. Any help would be very appreciated, in the form of book recommendations, sources, authors' names. Thank you for your time!

I'm no massive history buff as pretext, I just like medieval weapons.

Despite that, there are many stories of great warriors passed down in many cultures. I know the names of people like Ragnar the Red, Sigurd, William Wallace, Miyamoto Musashi, Oda Nobunaga, and I'm not from any of those cultures. In some cases known for leadership, but in many cases specifically for their martial and duelling prowess. These people have armour in museums, their names permeate current culture and media (characters for example being named Hanzo in videogames, referencing Hanzo Hattori, Braveheart about William Wallace e.t.c.). Why are there no stories passed down of champions in the European tournament circuits? The only figures I hear of from medieval England are monarchs and a few lords or barons, and this is never in the context of their individual battle prowess. Considering that Knights trained their whole lives to be warriors just like samurai, why do regular people not know their names? The only stories like that I can think of from England, are the Arthurian legend and St George, then maybe Joan of Arc from wider Europe.

I was wondering if anyone here could recommend a (or some) historically-accurate American history book(s)/textbooks for children? I am a homeschooling mother, and I can remember my textbooks in school “sugar-coating” lots of very harsh realities, only to discover the truth in college and even more thereafter. I want them to get as close to the truth as possible (realizing that authors can leak their own biases into the material).

Also, how was he able to keep from losing white voters after his about-face?

This question is about the concept of nation states. Historically, medieval peasants referred to themselves as "Muller von Hamburg", specifically tying their identity to the town/village they were born in. Nowadays, we refer to ourselves as a citizen of a nation. A much larger collective that is most abstract. But when did this come to be? Would it have been a quick transition?

When you look at modern depiction of the 12 disciples in TV/movies, or even the paintings from renaissance era, they are usually portrayed as middle aged men with grey hair and beard. During most of of the gospel, Jesus himself is believed to be around 30 years old while the disciples are likely around 15-25. Why are they depicted to be much older than they actually are?

From reading some historical books and on Wikipedia, it says that the Counts of Flanders were rather powerful and one of the main lords in France who ruled over one of the most urbanized and wealthiest parts of Europe. Numerous counts were crusaders, with Robert II taking part in the First Crusade and Baldwin IX becoming the Latin Emperor. How powerful were the counts both in their own territory as on the international stage.

Wouldn't the cities be virtually independent if they were so wealthy and how did this influence the power of the counts?

Were there moments when the counts were less powerful?

Did ancient Egyptians or other old African civilization knew about ice and show?

I know it might sound stupid but in a lot of books/movies, I have seen instances where a man knows a woman for a while and then he just proposes. I know books/movies aren't always historically accurate but I just find it strange how they just propose out of nowhere.