Hello.

I was wondering if Leonidas was shunned at all for still marching when told by the Oracle said otherwise?

I was keen as in the movie 300 ( I know that it hypes up a ton tenfold ) but there was a point where I was actually kinda wondering if the people would have been angry at him for still marching ahead or did the people still respect him for marching?

I know this probably sounds like a dumb question but am curious on how they would have thought oh him of he was told he’d die

United States-centric. I understand they were originally formed at different times and for different reasons, but by the time the American Revolution came around, they were all fighting for independence at once, to the point where they formed one country. Why by that time were they not just "British North America" with provinces like the area that would become Canada?

If so, when were they “adopted” into white society? What are some other examples of something similar occurring in other areas of the world? Do you see this happening again with other ethnic groups in the US as the percentage of white Americans decreases?

It goes without saying that Wu Zetian, probably until the modern era and to an extent even now, acquired a reputation among historians for being tyrannical and cruel. In traditional Chinese sources, the gruesome details of the accusations levelled against her read as rather...fantastical. Not that this is at all out of the ordinary for Chinese histories, which seem very character and narrative-driven and cast every other monarch to rule this or that dynasty as a complete psychopath who would make even the most conspicuously hostile portrayals of Nero or Caligula blush, but the fact that Wu was a woman, and therefore doubly at odds with Confucian tradition, further problematises the accuracy of accounts of her reign.

Passing over the stuff that is obvious character assassination, and the neat narrative flourishes that could be true but are entirely without substantial evidence and which are almost certainly impossible to prove (the whole infanticide thing for example), how much do we actually know about the way Wu Zetian reigned?

If even half of what the traditional accounts say are true, she would make Stalin raise an eyebrow. The stories of constant purges, mass proscriptions and executions, an extensive secret police employing Orwellian methods, widespread denunciations and the like that are supposed to have characterised Wu's murderous rampage across the Tang Empire sound more like something from a 20th century totalitarian regime than pre modern China. If anything, the logistics of it just seem implausible.

Does much in the way of contemporary written records survive from Wu's reign to corroborate this picture of her rule? Surely the structure of pre-modern Chinese society would have made such ruthless despotism practically impossible, and nobody could rule a vast territory through fear alone at a time when empires were comprised in large part of power bases of regional lords and clans and such. Had Wu truly been so sweeping and ruthless in culling the Chinese elite, how would she have managed to rule (de facto and de jure) as long as she did, able to dispatch rebellion rather easily for someone who is characterised as the irredeemable ruler from hell?

In post-conquest England, for example, the first century or two saw an itinerant court that was always moving around, and avoided big cities like London. How was the treasury handled without a set base of operations? Precious metals are wickedly heavy and make a tempting target, but leaving them behind without some kind of major center to protect them also seems excessively risky. How were funds gathered, tracked, and protected without a settled infrastructure?

As far as I know, there have been aspects of society that have continuously claimed that our society is degenerate and that the past used to be better, only to have similar claims be made in the past. Was this fear of societal moral decay as prevalent during the Middle Ages as it was during the last two centuries or so?

Like this seemed like a really oddly specific country to mention. Why not Finland? Estonia? Latvia? Lithuania? Or any of the countless ethnically different regions controlled by Austro-Hungary: like it just seems like a seemingly random country to call out

India was colonized by the Portuguese,Dutch,French and the Brits ,considering a significant colonial power in the past why didnt the Spanish got their chance?

What’s the deal with old sea monsters? Whenever I look at old maps of the world, even during the Columbian period and many before, I often see odd creatures drawn in the sea, from a huge fish with a gapping mouth like a whale to leviathans and sea serpents miles long. Obviously there’s also the kraken but I personally haven’t seen a giant squid of any sort in maps yet so I don’t know how common giant squids are in these maps. What are these sea creatures and their purpose? Are there distinct types or is each map makers different? If there are certain common types, what are their names and backstories, and why are they on so many old maps? Thanks!

I was very curious about this, we went from a period of chain mail and gambesons to cloth coats. Is the answer as simple as musket balls were strong enough to pierce most of these materials? Were the resources required to craft things like this better used for cannons or more guns? Was it so the army could move faster?

I know that there were regiments of cavalry that wore chest armor and helmets, so why wasn't it more common among infantry?

In Easy Rider, as the main characters travel across the South, they are often refused service, threatened, and even attacked >!and eventually murdered!< for being "long-hairs". Would travelling through conservative areas really have been this perilous for hippies during the late 60s, or is it all exaggerated for the film? In this case does it reflect a real paranoia at the time that hippies could be attacked when out travelling?

I have been reading about Gnosticism and Christianity appears a lot more free-form than what was established at the Council of Nicaea. Was its spread a political antagonism to Roman rule or was there a sincere religious "enlightenment"? What was so appealing about it compared to other contemporary religions around the Mediterranean?

Really curious about the dynamics of religion from this time and place, so any and all info is much appreciated.

On the face of it, it seems as if the bombings were blatant violations of the Hague convention.

Would it not have been more ethical and just as effective to detonate the bombs somewhere else that didn't make quite so much casualties?

The US could have bombed some remote spot in the countryside, or obliterated an uninhabited island near Japan, for instance.

Did slaves continue to play an important role in Norse households? Did the Norse still engage in the slave trade? Did they stop enslaving Christians but continue to enslave non-Christians? If slavery continued after Christianization, how long did it last?

Was there any concern for them considering they fought in the great war? or were they persecuted just like all the jews during that time?

I have been told, in this subreddit even, that the Manchu elites went to lengths to maintain a divide between themselves and the Han majority, and thus preserve their culture and restrict large scale settlement by Chinese in Manchuria until the end of the 19th century. I would assume that would probably help keep their language at least alive but instead it seems to be deader than disco, why is this? Did they just not put much value on the linguistic aspects on Manchu identity? I understand that in China today languages like Mongolian are still pretty widely spoken with their associated ethnic groups, what was the difference between something like that and Manchu?

The time differences between these kingdoms is so vast it’s hard to fathom. I realize that in my mind, Egyptian history is kind of uniform (Pharoahs, pyramids,dog statues, hieroglyphics, etc) up until Alexander takes over. But I’m sure there are massive differences - just look at how much European culture has changed in the last 1500 years, including multiple complete language shifts, multiple iterations of societal organization (feudalism, empires, democracies), music and art, etc.

What are some key cultural differences, or instance that might have made it hard from a person from the Old Kingdom to understand the New Kingdom?

Hello, to introduce myself, I am German and have a History B.A. While I had quite a few modules about WW2 (and wrote a paper about the Volkssturm I was quite satisfied with), one question I can't currently answer about the SS popped (again) in my mind. My grandfather was in the Waffen-SS from 1943, and I was told he was conscripted after trying to evade Recruitment (apparently before 43 he was „UK", so not recruitable because of being an essential worker at the railways). After that, I only know he did some stuff in the Balkans and became POW as a Funker in Kiew or Budapest (I think Budapest seems more probable). Then a story about being almost shot but they needed someone to sweep, after that a few years of Gulag. Unfortunately I wasn't able to do some kind of proper interview as a time witness with him...

Currently I am unable to properly research because of not being enlisted in my university at this time and the strict lockdown rules in my city. So, can someone give me a crash course how probable such a story is? Especially the part about being compulsory conscripted into the Waffen-SS? I know of some cases of recruits forced to the Waffen-SS because of pending political trials ( a son of Ernst Jünger had that supposedly happen to him), but I never stumbled about that outside of anecdotes.

So i’m just starting to learn about the Khmer Rouge and my knowledge of their ideology, beliefs, and intent in Cambodia in the late 1960’s-1970’s is limited. My research thus far has mostly been confined to google searches and video interviews from Cambodian citizens who were present during the time that Khmer Rouge held power. Based on the wiki about the Khmer Rouge it says that Cuba was an opponent of the Khmer Rouge and apparently so was the Soviet Union which I found slightly surprising because they are all influenced in some way or another by Marxism- Leninism concepts. I understand that communist concepts are not a one size fits all issue and I’m mostly just curious about the differences in opinion that they have within these shared beliefs/ socioeconomic systems. I am struggling to find anything specifically that details Cuba’s stance against the Khmer Rouge and I was curious if anyone would be able to provide any information about the Cuban opposition to the Khmer Rouge. Thanks in advance for any information that you might share.