According to the codex entries in Total War Rome 2, bathrooms were public, had no stalls or seperators between toilets, and people chatted during their visit, and to wipe they used a sponge that was shared.. I'm basically picturing a hell world where people just sit on poorly made toilets then pass around a shit smeared sponge to take turns wiping with. Can someone please tell me there's more details to this that makes it less disgusting?

I’ve heard a lot about how FDR went to great lengths to conceal his ailment. But considering he was the president of the United States, did the average American know he was wheelchair bound?

As I understand it horses aren’t native in the Americas but were introduced with the arrival of Spanish colonizers. But the image of the Great Plains always associates Indians with a horse culture, and I imagine it’s much harder to hunt buffalo on foot. What kind of evidence do we have today about what these cultures were like before they had access to horses?

Were they prosecuted? What happened to the ones that still were loyal to the GDR? What about the Stasi members working abroad as spies?

Did the average person really know or care what type of tax they were paying and whom they were paying it to? Was the Black Sea coast just lawless for a 100 years as two empires fought over big parts of it every generation? How much did day-to-day/week-to-week religious life change under differing administrations, especially in Circassia and other parts of the northern Black Sea?

I am not kidding.

My dad, who attended a french boarding school in the 60s, insists he was taught that she did this. He refuses to believe any Google results that I show him. I have tried to explain that he must have misunderstood the phrase "Let them eat cake" and what it actually implies. I have tried to explain that she probably never said it anyway.

He is insisting that she gave an order to deliberately poison cake to give to her starving subjects to kill them off and the outrage of this event is what sparked the French Revolution.

He is a Boy Scout merit badge counselor and is actively teaching young boys this nonsense.

I am at my wits end.

I am asking if anyone would be interested in a Zoom call to set him straight. Anything anyone thinks would help would be appreciated.

Wikipedia tells me the origins of capitalism have been much debated and depend partly on how capitalism is defined. So I wanna make sure I'm asking this question through this definition of capitalism:

"An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit."

So what I mean by "failed attempt" would be to be unable to transition to a system where private owners, rather than the nobility, own the means of production.

I've Always seen midevil people outside of nobility portrayed as only eating vegetables and fruits with little access to if any at all to meat, and then the colonial European empires seem to be entirely spurred by a desire to participate in the spice trade. so, Prior to the 20th century how well was access to meat and spices?

With the creation of both the 1619 Project, and the 1776 Commission, our view of history has started to take on a partisan view, with revisionist goals fitting the political position. How can we take a true view of history while still maintaining objectivity as new evidence of discoveries come to light? Should partisanship and presentism be allowed to alter our view of history?

Many people I meet say that the Holocaust didn’t happen, or that they’re saying that only a few hundreds of thousands died. How can I prove them wrong?

I understand that this answer will vary depending on neutral and belligerent and year, and kind of expect multiple answers depending on that. I am trying to get an idea of how much neutral shipping there was during WWII, and what neutral merchant marines were doing during WWII. Stories of any particularly risk-taking merchants are also appreciated!

My assumptions and specific questions for each significant merchant marine neutral are as follows:

Sweden, Finland: I assume they would be stuck trading with Germany in the Baltic. Would a merchant attempt to run a shipping route to the UK or US, or was that trade halted by Germany?

Central/South American countries: I assume they would mostly trade with the closest and safest belligerent, the US, plus maybe Australia/New Zealand and UK possessions in Africa and India. Was there much risk from German U-Boats for this trade on neutral flagged ships?
Would a Central/South American merchant attempt to trade with Japan or Germany/Italy? Vichy France?

Ireland: Are they stuck mostly in the US/UK North Atlantic convoy trade? If alone in the North Atlantic, would an Irish flagged merchant be attacked by German U-boats? Would an Irish merchant even attempt to trade with Germany? How about Vichy France? Japan?

Spain, Portugal: This is an interesting one. I know these countries were friendly with the Axis powers, and could provide neutral ports through which Germany could acquire war resources (via rail transhipment). So where was their merchant marine trading? How much of their ocean-going import trade was eventually bound for Germany/Italy? Also did Spanish/Portuguese merchants attempt to trade with Japan?

Turkey: Another interesting one. How much of their merchant marine was trading with the UK/USSR versus Germany/Italy? How much did a Turkish merchant ship need to worry about British or German submarines in the Mediterranean? Would Turkish merchants be allowed through the Suez Canal during the war? Would Turkish merchants try to trade with Japan? How about the US? Was Istanbul used as a neutral port for rail transhipment to Italy/Germany?

Vichy France: Not technically a neutral, but interested in what their merchant marine was doing 1940-1945. Were they even allowed to trade with the US/UK? Could they trade with neutrals without interference from the US/UK? Also interested in the status of the French merchant marine in the Far East, with regards to trading with Japan.

All neutrals: Were any incentives provided by the US/UK for neutral merchants to join the North Atlantic Convoys or USSR lend-lease shipping? If so, did any neutrals take up that offer? Did Japan/Germany/Italy provide any extra incentives to try to entice neutral merchants to trade with them and/or not trade with the Allies? What efforts did the Allies put into stopping neutral trade with Axis powers?

My wife and I are looking to build our own home in 5-10 years here in the US.

She’s from Mexico and I’m from Ohio, but we have both traveled throughout Europe.

Why is it more common to use stone veneer and highly polished/manufactured wood in the US? Even modern homes in the UK built in the 2000s have real brick walls, and quality floorboards.

I understand that timber frames are cost effective as opposed to something like limestone, but brick is actually in a comparable price range.

How has the history of architecture and construction in the US resulted in multi million dollar houses being made with low quality materials (in comparison to European houses of the same price range)?

It seems that America has a 3 letter acronym agency for every single crime, why are they all seperate instead of under one main body? ATF, DEA, FBI, CIA etc.

How did TV stations and production studios decide season lengths?

TNG also had a shortened second season, so I'd be curious about that too!

I know that the Taiping Rebellion was started by a guy who thought of himself as the brother of Jesus Christ. But how did such an idea arise inside an insular society like 19th Century Confucius Qing Dynasty China? How did he gain so many supporters as to capture much of Southern China and lead to the deadliest Rebellion in history? It all seems like something out of a novel or a fact that sounds too weird to be true. How did it really happen?

Due to colonization a lot of the knowledge was lost but from what little I can find there was a martial art called " Koonomon Tagip Baip " which was practiced hand to hand with no weapon and then there was the Club and Shield martial art.

Does anyone have any information?

My great grandfather was part of the crew of the SM U-103 which curiously was sunk after the Titanic's sister ship RMS Olympic rammed into it in 1916. This story got me reading about Uboot operations on WW1 and WW2 and it raised the questions on the title.

After how useful they proved for the germans in WW1, why didn't the Allies invest in massive submarine fleets?

Obviously in Russia people don't talk English, so they would use the word товарищ as far as I know.

Did people greet their neighbors with 'comrade'? Or just their political leaders? Was it seen as just a common phrase or was it ridiculed as a unnatural way of addressing people, simply pushed down from the top as propaganda?

Happy for any answer! Спасибо.