Would these gifts have been life changing wealth or more like "we'll be set for a few months"? I realize there's no "amount" given for those things, but how valuable would they have been in a reasonable quantity where "reasonable" is up to your interpretation?

A related question, how did jews rationalise the destruction of the 2nd temple. Didn't they more or less believe that the holiest place in the temple was the litteral dwelling of God? So what happens when that place is destroyed, doesn't that mean god left the land? Did jews try to set up other "temples" like how the tabernacle was build after receiving the 10 commandments as a mobile dwelling place for god. How do modern jews deal with the fact the priestly parts of their religion are basically not exercised anymore? How did they rationalise this change? Are their sects within judaism that continue/have to do some kind of priestly service?

Thank you so much for any attempt at answering my question

In ancient and medieval times, it seems that China was sort of cut off from the outside world. How much did China have contact with the Middle East, Europe, South Asia, or even places like Indonesia?

The Silk Road connected China with the outside world. But how many people would travel to China and back on the Silk Road? Was it very rare? Do we know how much traffic did the Silk Road had? Did the people in traveling on the Silk Road ever settle down in China? I have many questions.

By the way, "Middle East" has many definitions. My definition of the Middle East includes North Africa.

Obviously logistics were much different back then, and it wasn’t just prisoners headed for Australia. If I was a tradesman, businessman, or any other chap looking for a fresh start, how would I have gone about it, especially during the LONG sea voyage?

There has been some slight rumbling in modern times of some states wanting to leave the union. Several media personalities have joked-not-joked let them go, we're better off without them.

This got me wondering, was there any serious advocating in the North of just let the south succeeded prior to the American Civil War? No war, just let the slave states form their own independent union? If so, how did the battle of Fort Sumter effect their stance?

Supposing his claims of reincarnation are true, he's one of the harshest autocrats in history...

i heard people say the stories were constantly being rewritten time and time again . is that something people just say or is it actually true and is there such a bible that was found to be old 1000 years that is lets say different to a bible that was only 200 years old

It seems germans simply settled "around" sorb and czech lands without penetrating them, despite both being attractive territories for new settlements. The more northern slavic languages in Holstein and Pomerania however went extinct, why is that?

Hello,

I am trying to find out about my British grandfather's WW2 service history. All I know is that he was probably ranked Captain, served from 1940-45, was from Yorkshire and supposedly served in a unit that was initially a cavalry/mounted unit and converted to an armoured/tank unit early on in the war. My aunt believes he served in North Africa and then up through Italy and into Germany. However, she cannot remember the name of the unit, nor does anyone seem to know his service number, which is making it hard to find any records!

Does anyone have any suggestions about what unit this could be? What type of vehicles did these units tend to use? Are there any other interesting facts about these units?

Many thanks!

From my reading it appears that drugs like marijuana and opium were well known and documented throughout Antiquity but do we have any evidence of strictly recreational use during the ancient/medieval period, or were the use of these drugs strictly reserved for religious or medicinal purposes? I vaguely remember HBO's Rome series depicting Cleopatra with a drug problem. Would something like this have been common in the ancient or medieval world or is drug addiction as a widespread societal problem a relatively recent phenomenon?

Knowing relatively little about them my assumption is that they were nomadic enough to encounter others who would trade salt.

There is someone I spoke to that turns out to be such a person, as when they enthusiastically started going on about it, I had been awake for 23 hours and wasn't able/willing to carefully get them away from their rather perilious position.
I do apologize if this has been asked before, but if anyone can help in terms of sources and arguments that might help them see their errors, I would genuinely appreciate it.

Part of me wishes to just block, but I though it might worth at least a try to carefully inform, if not to turn around entirely, at least to give a different perspective than their current one.

Hadn't met such people before and not even sure where to really begin, especially without them denying everything because they don't want to believe it, if such a thing is possible.