So it seems as if the pirate aesthetic is sort of making a comeback into the forefront of popular culture this days (with all this 'sea shanty' business on Tik Tok), and it's all just got me wondering: how much of what we think we know about 18th century pirates/privateers is actually accurate? Did they sing sailing songs and drink grog all hours of the night? Did they plunder ships for gold as we see so stereotypically portrayed in media? Any insight is greatly appreciated!

Okay, okay - I have done a bit of research and realise that chemical warfare is almost certainly not the cause (or could it be?), but this family story has bugged me for years.

My great-grandfather died when I was a young child in the mid 1980s. I clearly remember being told that he lost his sense of smell "due to being gassed in the war". I took this as fact and carried it with me as part of my family story, until I was in my mid 20's when a friend pointed that there was no evidence of chemical warfare being used on allied forces. Hmmm.

My great-grandfather never spoke directly about his experiences, so any stories were potentially a mixture of fact and fiction. But he definitely lost his sense of smell, this is fact. He definitely fought in North Africa for the British army. Everyone in the family that I could ask about this is now dead, so I'm left scratching my head.

[Edited to add British army]

I’ve been reading Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose and the heretical groups of that era (Fraticelli, Arnoldists, Waldensians, Catharsis, etc) figure into the plot heavily, and are repeatedly characterized as such. Obviously there are differences, but Eco (via his protagonist) understands them as being fundamentally alike in this regard.

Could you recommend me some books about Russia during the 1990’s after the fall of the Soviet Union? I recently read David Remnick’s book “Resurrection” about Russia during this period and wanted to read more about the subject.

Did everyone use slave soldiers as elite warriors or was it actually pretty limited in the Islamic World?

Thank you in advance.

I've heard Jesus was a historical person but not sure what exactly is known about him

From the bits and pieces of what I've heard about him, it sounds like he had a strong bond with his wife. I know non-monogamous exist, but since his sons were his generals it would make sense his sons would have played the larger hand in the direct raping and pilaging that has resulted in the massive amount of people the can trace their lineage back to the Khan.

I am reading Iggers’ Historiography in the Twentieth Century and I’ve reached the portion of the more postmodern theories. He talks about (and criticizes) Geertz’s theory of “thick description“ and his use of it in his study on cockfights in Bali. But I haven’t been able to understand what exactly a “thick description” is. How is it different from a description according to more “ordinary” and older methods of historiography?

In podcast by Philip Harland, he says that one story involving Satan depicted him as a "black man, an Ethiopian." How and why did that depiction of satan come about?

If you were a member of certain professions, it was likely that you would develop some form of disability related to your occupation - Chimney sweeps' carcinoma and Glassblowers' cataract, brown and black lung for miners, heavy metal poisoning for smiths and hatters, etc. Did guilds help out members who suffered from these to the point that their ability to work or care for themselves was diminished?

The sentences in question are:

Conversely, in 1969, Francis Paul Prucha argued that Jackson's removal of the Five Civilized Tribes from the extremely hostile white environment in the Old South to Oklahoma probably saved their very existence. Similarly, Remini claims that, if not for Jackson's policies, the Southeastern tribes would have been totally wiped out, similar to people such as the Yamasee, Mahican, and Narragansett.

Is this considered a legitimate stance to hold today? I know Remini from his book "Andrew Jackson and the Bank War" and he didn't strike me as being particularly biased in his representation.

I just feel uncomfortable with what might be a mild form of genocide denial, and any further context on the native removal act would help.

When was the first recorded time that people started using a standard year?

The way it's been explained to me, during the days of the Gold Standard, when countries paid for their debt in gold, they would very rarely actually transport the gold from country to country and, instead, simply earmark their own gold supply as now belonging to the other country (e.g. when Germany paid Britain war reparations, they simply marked it as now belonging to England and then sent them an equivalent to an I.O.U.) Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

So, let's say I'm a country in the 1920s who owes reparations to another one. What's to stop me from saying that my country has discovered a large pile of gold, doctoring photos to make it appear like it exists and simply paying my reparations using this nonexistent gold supply through I.O.U.s?

I want to understand the reasoning behind the conversions and for what reason were people willing to give up their own religion for a completely different one.

I understand that this question might be a false pretense, so apologies for that.

But the steppe nomads conquered China, Iran, Central Asia, the Middle East, parts of Anatolia and India. Pretty much all areas that bordered the steppe. Is there a reason they never pushed into Western Europe ?

But as far as I can tell the indo Europeans invaded/assimilated into Western Europe around the 3rd millennia BC and since then the Asian nomads never really pushed too far into Western Europe. It seems like they always stop around Germany ?

Did the Huns go the furthest when they invaded France and Italy. Did the Scythian or other Iranian nomads make it to places west of Germany ? I’ve also heard the German forest is a natural barrier that that would stop the nomads. Even the mongols only made it to Hungary / Austria.