Often times I hear that China didn't accept the Opium, since it was afraid that it might get too popular in their empire.

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For the results, the humiliation and the transfer of Hong Kong is often discussed, but nobody talked about the drugs, something which China tried to block off.

So did China have a problem with Opium after it lost the war? If yes then how did they fix it?

I came across this passage in an otherwise unrelated Foreign Policy article recently:

"Non-military historians often talk about how it was the rise of gunpowder that led to the end of the mounted knight in Western Europe. The reality was that it was the rise of mass, disciplined, pike-wielding infantry such as the Swiss Eidgenossen and later the German Landsknechts that doomed the armored knight on horseback starting in the 1200s and accelerating from there. Mounted and armored knights, once the kings of the battlefield, were not degraded and dismounted by a new technology but by one of the oldest. Coherent and single-minded infantry formations are an idea dating back at least to the Greeks from 2,000 years earlier. Training, not technology, was the dominant force."

How would historians assess this argument? And if it is true, if the solution to knights was as simple as a well-trained, pike-wielding infantry armed with pikes, why wasn't that strategy adopted immediately when facing knights and knights prevented from ever becoming militarily dominant in the first place?

Also, the author says Western Europe. I know serfdom lasted much longer in Eastern Europe, but did the military efficacy of knights last significantly longer there as well?

Hi!

I'm Czech, so these books can be both in Czech and in English. I'd like to learn more about the history of my country during the socialist regime, or the 20th century as a whole.

I know from my family's history that both sides of my family have had both their ups and downs during the interwar, socialist, and post-socialist eras - so I would like to read something actually objective about this time. NOT a Tankie style apologia, NOT a conservative-slanted antisocialist book only recalling the political repression and authoritarianism. If there is a book that talks about both the human rights repressions and the social reforms, both the people and the Party decision making, both the government and those opposed to it, both the leftist and the rightist opposition... I'd be very happy to know about it and be able to read it. Thanks a lot.

Also, slightly off the original request - if you know of something like that for other socialist countries than Czechoslovakia, OR if you know a book/source on the feminist and LGBT movements either in Czechoslovakia or the Eastern Bloc in general... I'd be glad to know about these, too.

As far as I am concerned, even befor WW1 a number of automatic and semiautomatic weapons existed. Yet the standart rifle of most armys were bolt action rifles like the Lee Enfield. Especially in WW1 I think it would be advantageous to use a semi or full automatic weaponin trench warfare . So why were bolt action rifles the standart issue rifle in the world wars?

I've found multiple very interesting answers regarding the cultural and identity differences between the inhabitants of both states. But in this case, I'm more interested in how did they approach it from the diplomatic/legal point of view. I.e both empires signed multiple alliances and treaties with each other (and I assume there was significant diplomatic communication in general between them) over the centuries.

Was their relationship at any point similar to the one between Eastern and Western Roman empires in late antiquity (both recognized that at least formally they constitute a single undivided state which is ruled by two emperors). Or did they always saw one other as independent states, and just ignored the fact that legally they considered each other to be illegitimate due to practical reasons?

In the second case, did their emperors always refer to each other as the "Emperor" of the Greeks or Germans/Franks/Latins?

Growing up, I swear I was told that the pilgrims on the Mayflower were the first to establish themselves in America. However, there were other settlements such as Jamestown already here. Why are Americans taught that the Mayflower pilgrims were first when they weren’t?

I am watching a lot of stand-up comedy these days. So, what is the history of Stand-up comedy? How it began? and how it has evolved from the early days?

Let's say armor is minimal, even then, that is anywhere from 15,000 to 40,000 people.

To arm them, be it with a sword, an axe, a mace, a rake, a pitchfork...

Where exactly would this be stored on such a scale? Would citizens just store X or Y amount in their house, and when at war, bring them with them?

Is there any signs of a truly remarkable storage capability of a certain people?

I'm reading the Romance of The Three Kingdoms right now, and I'm baffled at how powerless the late emperors of the Han Dynasty are. They don't seem to hold any real militar power; that is reserved to local warlords. How come they didn't have a retinue of soldiers back then to prevent from being captured by someone too ambitious in the Empire?

In Robin Hood stories the Sheriff of Nottingham is often the big bad who seems to run everything. In contrast a Sheriff today is a (relatively) low level position. But what exactly would have been the position of a Sheriff in England at the time. How would have he been appointed? What was his duties? How important would have he been? Would he be a noble? Would he actually have a castle?

How accurate is the depiction of the era in the show to what it’d have been in real life?

How was it possible for all Chinese dynasties to keep such an expensive and demanded product out of the reach from international producers since the antiquity untill modern times? Are there other considerations such as clima conditions to explain why only China could be the one source of Silk consumed all over the afro-eurasian world?

Stray thought occurred that what we think of as bowed instruments weren't really around so much back then. What kind of music would your favorite emperor that more and more people are saying led strongly have been trained to play / been performing while the fires (very bad!) raged?

I just started reading Eduardo Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America and he seems to suggest Europeans had evidence of a civilization not known to them pre Columbus. Did corpses and art work really float from the America's to europe/ its territories or were these just folk-tales?

To my understanding, before Queen Anne, there weren't many queens in the UK. The monarchy would pass over any woman in order to find a distant male heir. They "just weren't palatable" to support politically. But then suddenly, after Charles I, it's like having a queen was all the rage both in Britain and many other parts of the world?

I'm curious if this observation is accurate and what might have caused this plethora of female leadership -- was it just inbreeding, wars, and plagues causing only women to be viable heirs, or was there a shift in thinking that had succession crises suddenly looking at women as viable candidates? Thanks!

...being king based only on inheritance when that was not why the founder was king?

I've seen a lot of references to practices which seem to indicate that warfare with neighbors was expected basically every year during campaigning season. Is this true? I'll list the things I've heard.

• Roman citizens in the early republic would gather on the field of Mars to every spring prepare to fight the neighboring tribes. This is stated on the Wikipedia for the campus martius on Wikipedia, under the antiquity tab.

• I was told in catholic school that David(?) was delinquent for, at one point, not going off to war one summer with his armies, which he was expected to do every year. They said basically everyone did this back then. Not a great source, but this idea must come from somewhere right?

• I do remember the Israelites always fighting the Phillistines and Canaanites, but they never seemed to bother explaining why.

• The preface for my copy of the Iliad says something about how piracy and attacking random cities were considered legitimate, if dangerous, ways to obtain wealth and prestige in Homeric times.

• Crassus died while invading Parthia on his own initiative while governor of Syria. A bunch of Armenians wanted to help him, but were rebuffed. Caesar was planning on doing the same thing before his death. Did they have or even need a reason?