The Mongol invasion of Vietnam is pretty much summed up by historians as a Mongol failure due to the tropical climate and terrain which caused the Mongols to catch disease. A part of the failure is due to the Vietnamese scorched earth tactics and Tran Hung Dao's great military genius. The former part is considered the main part of the defeat so we will be critiquing that.

The Mongol invasion of Burma in 1277-1287, which is way less popular upon historians is summed up by historians as a victory with the Mongols managing to destroy the great Pagan Empire and break it down into many kingdoms, which wouldn't ever be united for 2 and a half decades until the reign of Bayinnaung.

Even though the Mongols didn't get to conquer Burma, being driven out a decade later, it shattered the Pagan Empire into pieces.

What made it that the Mongols were able to successfully invade and destroy Burma while it couldn't do the same with Vietnam, which is a comparatively smaller nation.

The similarities they have are that that:

• Both countries have a tropical climate which can make disease more likely.
• The areas the Mongols attacked these countries from is very mountainous which can delay the predominately cavalry army of the Mongols.
• The areas the Mongol attacked these countries from is in thick jungle, which can delay the predominately cavalry army of the Mongols.

However, Burma possessed a greater advantage than the Vietnamese in certain things:

• Burma had more men and troops which made fighting easier. This is due to the Pagan Empire being larger than Dai Viet at the time.
• The area the Mongols attacked the Burmese has more extreme mountains than the less extreme mountains in northern Vietnam. Although the mountains in Vietnam were formidable, passing the mountains, there is a flat terrain, very suited for cavalry. This is the thing for Burma, though the mountains were thicker.
• The area the Mongols attacked the Burmese in wasn't near the sea, which gave the Mongols a harder time carrying supplies opposed to Vietnam who was near the sea.

Despite the many advantages the Burmese had over the Vietnamese, how were they so easily defeated while Vietnam couldn't?

To me it seems that more arrows could be fired than bullets in a certain amount of time. Why did muskets replace bows and arrows. Were bullets just easier to carry than arrows. We’re they more damaging?

Every other empire in history was named after the country it originated from, so why was the Roman Empire named after the city it originated from?

Why wasn't it called the Italian/Latin/Mediterranean Empire?

I was told in history class that the Mongol invasion of Europe was almost unstoppable because of their uber superior tactics, their use of horse archers completely unstoppable because they would just shoot you with bows, then ride away if you chased them, then ride back if you went home, and all the while they're shooting you with bows. This sounds like a broken strategy from a video game or something. I was told the only thing that actually put a stop to these shenanigans was the invention of guns and the mass deployment of forts which are arrow proof. Is that actually true? If horse archers are so unbeatable why hasn't every civilization on Earth made them the core of their armed forces?

I don’t want to know the history of the abc song that we all know today. I want to know if anything came before the ABC song and does anyone have recordings or links to recordings of them? Or maybe a primary source that has notes written out? Thanks!

Were they allowed to leave America? Were they detained? If they were allowed to leave, how did they get back to Japan?

King George I was born as a German in Hanover. He became the king of Britain through a marriage. We all know that he couldn’t speak English. So did he introduce German words into English?

If he didn’t, what was the reason that William The Conqueror can bring in French vocabulary while King George couldn't?

Czechia and the Czech language has Slavic roots (if I’m not mistaken), which makes sense coming from its east, but how did Bohemia develop a distinct cultural heritage from Germany/Austria? Bohemia is surround by a lot of German speaking territory, much more so historically. I’ve tried to find the geographical barrier the divides Saxony from Bohemia, but nothing has come up. It maybe as simple as a small mountain range, but I haven’t found a satisfactory answer.

I’ve been doing research on the marriage alliances conducted by Yaroslav the Wise, focusing primarily on the motivations for each. I can understand how he would end up in contact with Hungary, Norway, and possibly England since princes from those kingdoms were either living as exiles in Kyiv, or dynastically tied with the Rurikids.

But how did Rus, a monarchy with seemingly no dynastic ties to France, end up in Henry’s radar? Most of the research I’ve done suggests Henry didn’t want to break any consanguinity laws- but did he really have to look as far a Rus just to avoid these?

I’ve also heard a theory that Casimir I of Poland, Yaroslav’s brother-in-law, spent some of his time in France and pitched the marriage as part of an alliance against the Holy Roman Empire. But did Henry even keep in touch with Casimir after he left?

Some of the Pre-Columbian civilizations that inhabited the Americas we know today like the Aztec Empire or the Inca Empire were rulled by monarchs, tlatoanis in the Aztec Empire and sapa incas in the Inca Empire but, were there civilizations not rulled by a monarch?

I've read that the nahua state of Tlaxcala was rulled not by a monarch but by a council and so far this is the only civilization I've encountered that didn't have a monarch as its ruler.

Were there other states besides Tlaxcala that could be considered republics or democracies in today's terms?

Is there any record or sign of that ancient people encountered radioactivity? Such as through naturally radioactive materials while mining, or radioactive meteorites?

Especially with Iran becoming a theocracy.

I am an avid consumer of myth & fairy tale reading, whether modern fantasy or European folklore. In such reading there are tons of examples of morality that doesn't quite square with our modern sensibilities, but never before have I encountered such bluntly, descriptively racist and sexist stuff. The one thousand and one nights is decidedly different in that regard, taking its time to describe adulterous women and men getting gruesomely slain, women getting "justly" beaten to a pulp for arguing with their husbands, and especially vicious descriptions of "hideous blackamoors with lips so large as to gather up all the sands in the room."

I am not shy about looking nastiness from humanity's past in the face - But I do find myself wondering if any of this is embellished in translation.

I noticed the popular translations happened in the late 1800s, which one might argue is kind of the hayday of academic racism.

I need an expert to tell me either "oh yea, unfortunately that's all accurate, the middle east was racist and sexist AF" or... "your hunch is correct, it was vastly embellished by its anti Muslim and imperialist translators, here's a more even handed translation."

Anyone care to have a discussion? Every culture has its poisons, the middle east included, but it seems a bit much.

Why are countries like the United Kingdom, Germany & Belgium famously know for producing and drinking beer while just south of them countries like France and Italy are more know for producing and drinking wine?

I’ve seen this issue rear it’s ugly, braided head again with the release of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. As I’m sure you can tell from the title this game focuses on the Vikings, as set in the action/stealth fantasy world Ubisoft has created. However, this game, and many other pieces of Viking media all share a similar issue. Their Vikings are more often than not inaccurate in dozens of ways. Examples of this can be found in movies, tv, games, propaganda, art, and even things like opera. Vikings seem to have a dual existence, first as an actual historical group and second as a pop culture figure. My question is why is this? How did depictions of Vikings stray so far from what is real?