As someone with epilepsy, it's interesting to read about how it has been perceived throughout history. I know there's a trope about seizures being seen as some kind of divine interference - what would the ancient Greeks or Romans thought of this?

It seems as though women ruled as regents for their husbands and sons all the time, but the idea of having a woman ruling in her own right was extremely controversial. I'm curious to know a bit more about why this was.

This seems especially damning when you consider that knowledge of things like the Killing Fields was available during this time period. And even after being responsible in large part for the extermination of between a quarter and a third of the Cambodian population, I was shocked to learn that (at least as far as I can tell) Pol Pot was never brought before any kind of international tribunal or formally charged for his crimes in any meaningful way; while he was sentenced to life imprisonment less than a year before his death, it was by the very same Khmer Rouge.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to answer! I apologize if I misstated any of the details and please feel free to correct me wherever I misrepresented anything.

This came up, because I saw someone recently make the claim that Tolkien's depiction of Gandalf (and other wizards) using magical staffs has become a ubiquitous trope. No one could seem to recall an example of an older mythology or folk tale citing a wizard with a staff, but this seems hard to believe.

I looked for some evidence of Merlin being depicted as using a magical staff in an older text, like "Le Morte De Arthur", but didn't find anything in a cursory search, so I figured I would turn to this forum.

Are there depictions of Druids using magic staffs for example? Perhaps Eastern monks fighting with staffs taking on some legendary reputation?

Please tell me what there is to trace.

Thanks in advance!

Was there a change in how disabled people were popularly perceived before and after the war? Did the sudden increase in the population requiring prosthetic limbs lead to an improvement in standards of care or life?

Looking at American history, a lot of terrible things were done and questionable decisions made in service of "stopping Communism." Involvement in the Korean and Vietnam wars, installing Saddam Hussein, facilitating numerous coups around the world, and of course the constant cultural specter of the Red Scare, this ever-present Communist Boogieman that defined post-war America.

But why was Communism seen as such a threat? Was there genuine concern that "the communists" would take over America? Was it fear at having a competing superpower? Or was it purely manufactured in an attempt at creating the kind of national unity seen against the Nazis?

Also sub question, did other nations have their own Red Scare or was that purely an American phenomenon?

I live in the midwest in the US and have recently been greeted with roughly 16" of snow and it sparked a question. How did Native Americans deal with bad weather or natural disasters? From what i have been taught in school is that the Natives in the midwest were nomadic peoples who lived in teepees and moved wherever food was around the plains. But this region of the US is prone to tornadoes in the summer and heavy snow in the winter? This question doesn't just have to be about plains Native groups. Did they stay where they were and hope for the best? Or try to get away from the natural event that was before them?

I'm not well versed in the cold war, or anything in history for that matter, but I really love the subject, but the cold war always perplexed me. Did they hate each other just for the difference in economic system, or was it something more? And if it was just economic system why did that cause almost half a century of competition, and wars? Please correct anything i have said that is historically inaccurate. Thanks!

Was it contemporaries or later historians who named e.g. Alexander III of Macedon "the Great" or Ivan IV Vasilyevich "the Terrible"? There must have been one single source which initiated this naming convention for each particular monarch. There must also have been attempts to give a monarch a nickname which didn't stick and hence failed to become common knowledge.

So what would have to happen for e.g. Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom to be universally known as "Elizabeth the Great" in the future?

In act 3 in Shakespeare's famous romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliette, Romeo kills Tybalt in a street brawl after Tybalt kills Mercutio, Romeo's friend. If this street brawl would have actually happened between two feuding families in medieval Italy what kind of weapons and armour, if any, would Romeo, Mercutio and Tybat have carried and used?

Now since Shakespear's play doesn't depict the men involved in the fight as being armed and armoured for war so for the sake of the argument lets assume that none of the men carry any arms other than what a young, well off nobleman/burger would have during a night out on the town, knowing there could be trouble.

Also since there isn't a specific year or era mentioned in the play (beyond eleven years after an earthquake ) but other earlier versions of the story puts the story in the 14th to 15th century, let's put the time period of the incident somewhere between 1350 and 1500, so as to limit the scope of the question somewhat.

So you're a knight, you're fighting another knight in honorable one on one combat, he's clearly got you bested and he's more interested in taking you hostage and gathering a ransom instead of killing you (and he'd rather just accept your defeat and let you go on your way instead of killing you even if not for that), is there some standard of how much of a fight you have to put up before you're allowed to surrender, does he have to wound you or is it cool to just drop your sword without suffering a blow and saying "okay you got me"? I assume that'd be a bit embarrassing.

So, we know that despite their anti-pagan attitude, the Byzantines safe-guarded ancient manuscripts, busts, artworks etc (roman and greek). So presumably, a roman in medieval era could educate himself about ancient roman or greek literature, history, arts using the libraries of Constantinople.

My question is, did they ever use this knowledge and their accessibility to the antiquity to their advantage in medieval era? One example might be that they used the Phalanx formation in the siege of Rome (maybe, I read it somewhere but I'm not sure). Implementing these types of ancient battle tactics or bringing back those units must have given the enemies a great surprise. An arab or Turkic or Slavic army would never expect to meet a legion in battle, which could work in the Byzantines' advantage, couldn't it?

Also do we see similar revival in the fields of literature and arts? I guess Anna Komnene did something like this, but again I am not sure.

Thanks in advance.

When I was younger (7) I use to play world of tanks with my dad as he found it very nostalgic and one of the main tanks we used was a soviet Churchill which was available on U.S.S.R branch, my dad being a really old part Russian man said It was named in honor of the prime minister of England at the time out of respect . Only when I got older I learned it was a tank of British origins and realize I was fed a patriotic lie, How the hell did it end up in the soviet hands.

Hello! I am aware of what the harem supposedly looked like during the different time periods in China, but I was curious about if it was actually mandatory for the emperor to take concubines? I have searched for an answer regarding this but everything that I found was inconclusive. It seems it was expected, and that the emperor had a responsibility to take concubines for the sake of making sure that there would be a male heir. But I haven't found a definite answer yet.

So, was it ever mandatory? If it was mandatory, was it mandatory for the emperor to take concubines if he had already had sons with his first wife (the empress)?

Why was the US constitution lacking "basic" democratic elements like the freedom of religion/speech/press/assembly, right to due process, prohibition of cruel punishments, which have then be added via amendments soon after?

Did a small Anarchist, Autonomous zone exist in Manchuria? I can hardly find much information on it. Sources on where I can learn more would be much appreciated.

I'm leaving this open to any region in the pre-middle ages because part of me doubts that there are any sources at all about it.

Ancient peoples must have noticed static in a variety of forms, from hair defying gravity, to the little shocks when you touch something while charged, to actually seeing it when it's dark out. The idea of experiencing or seeing static without an explanation sounds mindblowing and almost scary, so I'm wondering how people talked about it.

Are there any explanations or descriptions of static from antiquity? How do they rationalize it?

The show Bridgerton depicts a fictional Black woman of nobility stating that King George III’s choice to pursue a love marriage with Queen Charlotte, depicted as mixed-race, enabled other people of color in Britain to become nobility themselves. Is this accurate? I have read that Charlotte’s portrayal as mixed is historically accurate but I have not done extensive research on it.