It’s my understanding the average person had fairly poor hygiene at the time combined with terrible medical knowledge. Was it no big deal? Did people think they had a plague? Not sure why this always interested me

I am listening to the most recent Hardcore History detailing the battles in the east and it just made me wonder how closely the average person at the time was following the war? Dan Carlin is so colorful with his description it makes me think the average person would be following the moves of each nation almost like a sports team; however, I thought much of the purpose of the “Supernova in the East” episodes was because the average American (generalizing) is not as familiar with what went on in the east vs the west. So I am curious as to what the level an average citizen may pay attention so to speak. Also sorry if this has been answered before!

And is there any other group throughout history that could be considered pirates, but we call them by another name?

Just reading the Wikipedia entry to my son (!!) on the history of Santa Claus, when I get to this point: "Irving's interpretation of Santa Claus was part of a broader movement to tone down the increasingly wild Christmas celebrations of the era, which included aggressive home invasions under the guise of wassailing, substantial premarital sex (leading to shotgun weddings in areas where the Puritans, waning in power and firmly opposed to Christmas, still held some influence) and public displays of sexual deviancy; the celebrations of the era were derided by both upper-class merchants and Christian purists alike."

And: "Santa Claus lost his bishop's apparel ... and was at first pictured as a thick-bellied Dutch sailor with a pipe in a green winter coat. Irving's book was a parody of the Dutch culture of New York, and much of this portrait is his joking invention."

Also what was the deal with the Dutch in the area during this time?

This is apparently why the ship goes down in one piece in A Night to Remember.

I'm especially curious if there was debate amongst historians based on conflicting reports.

That is to say, was there any sort of national bias that Greece or Egypt produced better engineers than Rome, because of their long history of engineering projects? Or did Rome consider Roman engineering the height of mechanical skill?

This morning I read an article from Livescience about the Drake formula, which is used to estimate the possible number of civilizations in our galaxy. One variable in the formula assumes that intelligent species like humans do not strike a sustainable balance with nature and self-destruct, or are wiped out by some cataclysmic event. So I'm curious whether or not this assumption is correct. Does evidence exist where humans have lived in a sustainable and non-destructive balance with nature?

Hi I’m currently reading “microbe hunters” , and I’m not sure about it’s historical accuracy , but it’s a history in the development of microbiology . I understand that this much more science than history , but I was interested in the different attitudes among the scientific community to the idea of germ theory , compared to miasma or any ideas from Galen.

So I am Egyptian, but I came to see some posts online and watch videos about how modern day Egyptians aren't the descendants of the Pharaohs, and since I basically have little to nothing knowledge about researching history I thought I'd ask in here, sorry if my language seems a little off, English is not my first language, thanks in advance.

Hi, i’m a student and am creating a webcomic in my free time which involves several character from various eras of history, and i need to design outfits and a room for them. the only problem is that sources for fashion and interior design are hard to come across. Do any historians know where i would be able to find this information?? thank you !!!!

Hello! I am a freshman currently taking a Bachelor's degree in history, and we recently covered historiography. We've been asked to do a capsule research paper proposal for our final submission. As someone whose never done historical research before, what are the various historical research methods? Where can I learn about them? What is the difference between historical research methods & historiographical frameworks/concepts?

I apologize in advance if this isn't an appropriate question to ask in this sub, I've seen historiography covered in the FAQ, but it doesn't really answer my question and I don't think my question breaks any rules.

Hello everyone,

I am a history graduate student.

In the dissertation chapter I am currently writing, I have stumbled upon a problem I am not quite sure how to deal with. I am writing about the founding and early history of a particular political party. Now, as there are no internal documents that survive from said party for that history, I am mainly relying on third-party sources for this bit of the chapter, e.g. newspaper articles and memoirs. In total, I use around a dozen or so sources for the beginning of the chapter that narrates this early period of the party. However, the problem is that while the gist of these sources are is not contradictory, they still do contradict each other from time to time. For example, some sources say said party was established in 1893 and others say in 1895.

My question is how historians deal with such situations. Am I free to judge and decide myself what sources to trust for a particular factual/interpretative statement I make? Or would I need to go into detail in the footnotes along the lines of "Other sources differ on this. Source X says the party was founded in 1894, source y says it was founded in 1895 and source z says it was founded in 1896.," or is that not necessary unless this is a major point in my argument?

Also, if I have chosen to use a particular source to make one factual statement (say that the party was founded in 1893), but find that said source is wrong about another fact (e.g. that the party was renamed in 1901) and choose to use another primary source as a source for this fact, do I need to explain this in every instance in a footnote? Basically, I am wondering whether it is acceptable that I use a particular source to make a particular claim, but then not refer to it after that, even though it does comment on other events that I describe. This might be because I find other sources more convincing or because the discrepancies between the source and my narrative are minor and unimportant.

My guess is that unless we are talking about major point in my argument/the overall chapter, I do not need to explain such things. There are bound to be some inconsistencies if I use a dozen or so different primary sources for describing the party's early history, so explaining them all would lead to very long footnotes, which I have rarely seen in other historical scholarship. But I am still unsure and would be grateful for your advice!

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Thanks!

I've recently been playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla and I seen that there are highly visible and promenant Roman statues and architecture all over England in the late 800s CE. Is this true to life? Would you have been able to see Roman statues, aqueducts all over former Roman England? Or is this just artistic licence?

As a follow up question, when was it that the physical remains of England's Roman past disappeared?

If there's something I want to answer but I know it'll take a day or two to track down sources can I post something like "im working on a response to this, it'll be X days before its done though."?

Edit: thank you for both replies, and the explanation on moderation dofculties makes sense. I do still feel bad for all those unanswered questions, but thats how it goes.

Back when I was in school my history book described the crusading knights as soulless mercenaries. They would go make a mess in Jerusalem and come back with gold saying "Ooops, please forgive me".

Thinking back to it, it seems like a massive oversimplification. What was actually going on? Why would one sign up for a crusade in the first place - real belief in the cause, or just monetary interests? How would the crusaders feel once the campaign was over, genuinely remorseful for their sins, or 100% justified in their actions? How did the whole confession process work?

I was wondering where did Medieval peasants have sex when their children were 9 years old?

Is this related to the Spanish colonization of the Americas? Or of Spain's deep Catholic roots? Both?

China is a larger land mass that had a larger population, so why did the US not interfere in a meaningful way when the country was fighting a war that would determine whether communism or democracy would be the new form of government. The Chinese civil war is the reason why China doesn't have a democracy.

On paper switzerland is a neutral nation so their trucks and 'ships' would be let through no problem but I find that being true hard to believe based on well... everything.

So, today I learned the british government commissioned swiss watchcompanies to make a whole bunch of wristwatches for its troops. How did the swiss send their product over to the british isles? Did the germans just shrug and let them through? Did the swiss threaten them with boiling hot chocolate? Did the british send in paratroopers on a life or death mission to retrieve the watches? Or did they seriously smuggle thousands of wristwatches over to britain? Maybe they lied and told the border guards it was for the civilian market.

Thanks for reading.