So weve all heard the popular theory that Christmas was place on top of Saturnalia to allow easy conversion...but how similar is Saturnalia and Yule, to our Modern 21st century version of Christmas?

Is it just a simple direct-repackaging and renaming under a christian label, or are the changes more complicated than that?

I was reading about a family member that fought in the war and someone from his regiment told a story about him after the war. It's a great story, but I don't want to post it because it includes my name. You can search for it if you want, or I could send the link if you're really interested. The writer also made an interesting comment (below).

Anyway, I'm wondering what would lead him to see the South as almost already under military rule. I had never heard anything like this, and I'm interested if there's any truth to this, or if it's part of some odd line of thought that may have taken hold in the media at the time or whatnot.

From

WAR PAPERS

Read Before THE MICHIGAN COMMANDERY

Of The MILITARY ORDER

Of The LOYAL LEGION OF THE UNITED STATES.

Volume 2.

From December 7, 1893, to May 5, 1894.

THE SOUTH IN WAR TIMES. By Lyman G. Wilcox Major 3rd Michigan Cavalry (Read April 5, 1894)

He wrote:

"So far as the Confederate army was concerned, it was but an enlarged and strengthened normal condition of the South, officered and directed by an imperious oligarchy. In peace the South was a semi-military camp. Except as to a slave-holding caste, she had lost personal liberty, mentally and physically. Armed oppression had already awed and intimidated and enslaved the masses. Little wonder, then that the South was so easily and speedily launched on a sea of strife and struggled so fiercely to destroy the nation's life. The exclamation of Lee then told of the surrender of Twiggs to the Secession authorities of Texas, “that the liberty of great people is buried in the ruins of a great nation,” was the expression of a desire. It was the object of the strife and the goal which the leaders of the rebellion wished to reach."

I know that a lot of advances in engineering, chemistry mathematincs etc. happened during the late Tsarist regime (XX century was pretty significant), but I can't seem to recall nearly as many during the time of the Soviet Union, especially after the Great Purge. Do these purges still affect Russian science? Did the overall quality of education decrese after them? Or am I just ignorant?

Its been discussed that Hitler and the Nazis were about the worse thing that ever came along but pre around 1940, who was the terrible person in history? The closest I can see is maybe Napoleon?

Hey all.

I'm planning a topic on Ancient Greece for primary school aged children. I'm currently reading all about the Trojan War, however I'm very aware that it has been dramatised as well as appearing in the Iliad, which is of course fiction. However, upon research, there seems to be discourse to the legitimacy of the events.

How much of this actually happened? Was it simply just the fall of a city? Or did we have something to the extent of the Trojan Horse?

All answers are appreciated, thank you!!!

I've been trying to do some reading into the politics of Japan during that general time frame (say mid 1930's till end of WW2) and was having difficulty finding information of what was going on, like with various internal factions vying for influence and control like the Zaibastsu, or the various ministers of Japan and their cabinets. Also was curious about some of the more influential people/ factions politically that existed that weren't talked about as much if there are in.

Reading material would be appreciated if any is to be had, thanks.

There's a widespread belief, albeit based on Hitler's own description, that the assassination plot against him in 1944 was nothing but a few disgruntled and opportunistic military officers who opposed unconditional surrender.

Is it true, however, that the resistance against Hitler was far more widespread, and that previous coup attempts go back to a plan during the Sudeten Crisis in 1938 to refuse orders to invade Czechoslovakia, arrest Hitler, and have him declared insane?

In particular, is it true that the Munich Agreement, which handed Germany the Sudetenland on a platter, removed the pretext for that particular coup plot, with the implication that if Munich had never happened, Hitler's reign could have been ended and the entire war could have been avoided?

How did Bulgaria menage to raise such a big army during world war I with 1.2 million men when their population at the time was just 4.8 million. Not to mention that they had just lost the 2nd balkan war. Did they even have the capability to equip all their troops or build an effective army?

I have tried to get through his work, but have not been able to exactly understand what he's trying to say. English is not my first language.

I understand that there is no universally agreed distinction between a ‘civilisation’ and other advanced cultures, but this has bugged me for a while. The Norte Chico civilisation seems to have lacked ceramics, proto-writing (except possibly for a potential proto-quipu), proto-currency, much of ‘basic’ agricultural technology, and visual arts. Danubian cultures like the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture seem to have had all of these in droves, as well as larger settlements. On the other hand, the former had vast stone pyramid complexes (the largest at Caral being 150m x 110m x 28m), while the largest CT temple as far as I can tell was a fraction of the size (60m x 20m) and constructed from wood.

Is the idea that NC culture was a civilisation and the CT culture was not really that common? I’ve seen ‘civilisation’ used far more broadly, but I do see a massive gap in characterisation here.

And if so, was it due to this much larger monumental architecture? This seems a narrow criterion. Or is it due to a desire to include the Andean+Peruvian coastal ‘zone’ of civilisations that led down to the Incas, while Danubian cultures died out in prehistory and civilisation reached Europe again from the Middle East? This seems biased towards what survived to nearer out time rather than what simply was.

I'm curious about how people slept in the longer journeys. The only thing that I've really gathered is that on the more used paths, there would be an inn about every day of travel apart, but what was the situation for roads that weren't so traveled?

I know that historically it was problem to drink water with alcohol, or watered down alcohol, to kill germs and stay hydrated. But that’s not the norm anymore at least as far as I’m aware. When did people stop using alcohol to keep what they drank sterile and what did they switch too?

I am having trouble really finding good info on this but I’d imagine that if even for the most selfish of reasons a fair amount of working people and such would prefer not to have unpaid, compulsory labor.

In the same sense, was there considerable effort by the slave owning aristocracy to influence poor whites to support slavery? What forms did this take?

I was just wondering if composers like Mozart, Beethoven, Hadyn, and Liszt would have had any exposure to African, Asian, or Middle Eastern music? Would it have been accessible at that time? Is there any account of them talking about it?

What did mothers use before the advent of baby powder, disposable diapers, wet wipes for hygiene? How has pediatric medicine evolved? I would be particularly interested in the history of peoples considered indigenous, tribal, or nomadic. Thanks!

There are many rumours are surrounding the general fitness of Lincoln in his life. His wrestling ability and win record in his youth are well-known. However, there are also many rumours of him displaying his strength up until his death. He was said to hold up heavy swords and axes for minutes at a time as party-tricks. Do these rumours have sources?

I understand why a lot of other genocides qualify as genocides since they are one group trying to wipe out another. But the Cambodian Genocide seems different to me in that that doesn’t seem to be the case. Based on what I have read about it, it seems like what happened in Cambodia was a mass killing by the government of its own people. That’s certainly horrible but that just sounds like mass murder rather than genocide. Was there an effort to wipe out non-Cambodians at the time that I am not aware of?

I have heard speculation that humans would be living in a society like Star Trek with advanced medicines and science if not for the burning of Alexandria. The Middle Ages would have been very different and much of the Renaissance would be unnecessary because it was known information. There is clear evidence that the ancient world understood engineering and physics so other advanced science is not out of the question to me.

Because so much knowledge was lost it's possible you don't know what lost. Are they are any other good sources for human knowledge at that time? It seems to me like it's something that can't be studied due to the nature of the event. People only wrote about the fire after not forgotten knowledge.

I was reading the Wikipedia page for Han Dynasty, and Han Dynasty is divided into Western Han and Eastern Han period. In between Western Han and Eastern Han, Wang Mang usurped the throne and changed the Han Dynasty to Xin Dynasty for 14 years. A distant relative of the last Western Han Emperor, Liu Xiu, managed to raise an army, win several battles and restore the Han Dynasty.

I think the same thing happened at the end of Eastern Han. A distant relative of the last Eastern Han Emperor, Liu Bei, managed to carve out a territory and named his state, Han Dynasty. While the other two states called it Shu Han. This Shu Han also has the same geographic territory of the Kingdom of Han, which is the state of the founder of Western Han.

Why is Eastern Han considered to be a successor of Western Han, but Shu Han is not considered to be the legitimate successor of Eastern Han?

I want to start learning more about history, preferably about the Second and First World Wars.

What books about these topics do you recommend?

Basically, the title. Europe is full of legends about fairies, gnomes and such, but these kinds of legends and especially the respect for the fae are very prevalent in Ireland as a part of their culture to this day, and I've always wondered if they started to be this prevalent after two very differently ethnicities came in contact and one prevailed. Is there any archaeological or historical evidence of this? Did the Celts coming from mainland Europe entirely integrated with the "first" Irish people who already lived on the island? Were the two groups very different genetically/aesthetically?

Sometimes it's hard to even know what to search to find answers, so maybe someone here can help me. I'll have a written thing (may be pretty confusing) and a makeshift 'diagram' that might be a bit simpler to understand for trench networks of WWI.

TLDR: How were trench networks set up behind the front trenches? I know there were back trenches for various things (storing supplies/food/barracks/etc.). But were there completely separate (or somehow connected) trench networks behind the trench network of the front line constructed in case of needing to retreat and quickly be able to defend/counterattack effectively? **I could be completely misunderstanding how trench networks were set up and/or constructed.

Simpler 'Diagram':

Each letter = a trench network, complete with both front and back trenches/bunkers/barracks; A = a British trench network, B= another British trench network, C=German " ", D=" "; space between B and C = no man's land; I'm unsure about whether there would have been a gap between A/B or C/D, or maybe they were connected via another trench/pathway?

A B C D

The British assault from front trench of network B and take the front trench of the C network. Since C also includes back trenches, do the Germans set up shop again in the back trenches of C (if they know they cannot retake the front trench of C), or do they retreat to the farther back to the 'front' trench of D network to give themselves some breathing room?

The probably confusing written question:

Edit: For simplicity's sake, in this scenario the British are on offense, taking the front of the German trench network. The Germans are the defenders here.

So in general many times the initial objectives needing taken care of at the start of a British offensive was to take at least the Germans' front trench and then hold it. When this happened, was it common for the Germans to fall back to their back trenches (that are part of the same trench network as the front trench they just lost) and counterattack from those back trenches, or was it more common for the Germans/defenders to retreat even more and construct/utilize a new trench network farther back? Basically, did the Germans abandon the whole trench network to give themselves new space/breathing room from the British in the trench/trench network they just lost, instead of heavy fighting in their former front trench (if the front trench had been firmly taken by the Brits and the Germans were 100% unable to retake it)?

If there is anything I can clarify, please let me know. If I'm dumb please also let me know.