So I was eating the typical cereal this morning when I wondered. "How did people in the past celebrate birthdays when they had nothing to tell the time other than the seasons?" Which made me wonder about birthdays and whether or not they were part of everyday life in the past. Any answer would be greatly appreciated!

So like, I was wondering: Do we know how the five nations structured their democracy? How did they choose their leaders or council members or what have you, and how did that resemble our modern day egalitarian conceptions of democracy?

Sorry if this question sounds really stupid but it’s always confused to why the Nazis hated the Slavs despite them being European, and also the fact that the Waffen SS having various Slavic divisions.

Hello all,

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I am wondering if there are any good sources from Anglo-Saxons writing about Viking culture or life. The reason I ask is that I've read a lot about travellers from Europe in China and even the most Christian of Christians falling in love with Chinese culture. Similarly, there are several cases of Qing visitors to England finding England to be a lovely place. Often both are analysed through their respective religious/ideological views. I find these meetings of cultures to be fascinating. I just wondered if there are any good sources from Anglo Saxons of them meeting the barbarian Vikings or living among them, therefore finding themselves to look favourably upon Viking civilization.

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Thanks everyone.

For example: If a German soldier defects to the Allies and collaborates with them to avoid imprisonment, what would happen to them?

Will the German government punish them for treachery?

Will the citizens and populous mock/hate you?

Will the Allies praise you?

I understand that military units remained in-action in their foreign regions, like Africa, and were used by the Aliies. By 1945, newly-trained units were already closing in on Austria with the U.S. and British forces.

The Roman Empire is seen as the great forebearer of European culture and civilization, with nearly every European state seeking to emulate it in some way. However, Rome also encompassed a great deal of what we would consider today to be a part of the Muslim world, such as Egypt, the Levant, and North Africa. My question is, how is the legacy of the Roman Empire viewed in the popular imagination of these regions by Muslims? I know the Ottoman Empire, at least early on, claimed to be a successor to Rome by Mehmed II, but what about the caliphates and other empires in the region?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, this is my first post here.

Ok, im not really sure about this, and sorry for the very unprofessional wording of my question. So my history teacher said that the 8 year long/ 2 term president limit started after Roosevelt died. But didn't Truman finish Roosevelt's last year then proceed to be president from 1945-1953? Yes, that is 8 years, but I've heard he tried to serve another term against Eisenhower, if Truman had been elected in 1953, would he have also served for 12 years like Roosevelt?

My husband and I are playing with the kids and the toys include a medieval castle and dragons. We started wondering if dragons (large dragons) really existed or if its possible people found dinosaur bones and assumed they were big dragons.

Agricultural work is rough; it's not uncommon today to see an old farmer missing bits because they got a little too close to the thresher or fell off the tractor or just didn't move fast enough when the cow decided you were being too rough with the milking. Antebellum, some injuries might have been survivable, but would leave the individual with a permanent disability. I kind of cringe at the thought, because slavery was a nasty business at the best of times, but what happened to slaves then?

I just saw a FB post about Jackie Robinson's birthday, and realized that Jack Johnson was already dead when Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, Joe Louis had been HW champ for quite some time leading up to that as well, etc.

So, am I correct in thinking black boxers were accepted sooner? If so, does anybody have any idea why that is? It occurs to me that boxers are frequently seen as dumb and violent, which fits with certain unfortunate stereotypes, but I'd love to hear a historical take on the issue.

So whenever I look into this, all I find is a bunch of questions about why Russia is so underpopulated, relative to the massive size of their country. This seems obvious: most of Russia is freezing cold Siberian land. It makes sense that an east so vast and hostile wouldn’t be densely populated.

However, taking this into consideration, it’s actually more surprising to me just how heavily populated this country as a whole is. Sure, the east is pretty vast and relatively empty, but Russia’s total population is still the 9th largest on earth. This is for a country that is far north in Europe with no real natural barriers to protect them from neighbouring countries. On top of this, the country has a pretty harsh climate besides their land in the south, though most of the population seems concentrated more north.

So how is this the case? Why is it that Russia - remote, unprotected, with an overwhelmingly harsher climate than most of Europe - has such a gigantic population?

I appreciate there is a number of considerations to account for, such as did they know which areas these people were coming from (changing over the years), did they have the naval capacity to launch an attack. I have never heard of this type of event taken place, but I am curious if a anglo saxon raid ever occurred on Scandinavia land or for that matter even on the continent?

-Terrible life expectancy -One third of the world being slaves with no rights, some born into it -Constant war, if you’re a man, the expectation to fight for your country -Oppression of women -Ridiculously harsh punishments for crimes, like being thrown into an arena to fight in Rome -Disease with no medicine -Duelling to death over petty things

I’m sure I could go on forever. I understand we have a basic need to survive programmed into us, but there’s no way everyone was constantly miserable and suicidal. My question is why not? Having grown up in the modern world just the idea of going back in time is terrifying.

More specifically, how were slaves, working class equivalents of back then and women not miserable in say, 0AD Rome and 1000AD Medieval Europe?

Did different cultures attribute the disastrous climate to different things? What did scientists of the day think? Was there a lot of superstition surrounding the event?

Many thanks in advance.

So context for this post

Last year in my history class, my history teacher opened up about Milutin, one of the kings of Serbia, being a pedophile, having sexual relations with his wife Simonida of the Byzantine Empire, who was 5 when she was married to him.

Previously to this, I was always told that his relationship with Simonida was more of a father daughter dynamic than an actual husband and wife.

I would like to know if there's any proof for him being a pedophile, or were my third grade teachers more accurate.

Thanks in advance.

Did the traders traveling on the silk road get robbed a lot? Did they have their own security to protect them? Was their a big reward for the robbers (if there was any? Would they ever get caught?