Can anyone recommend a good source on 14th century aristocratic marriage, specifically the age at first marriage? Ian Mortimer's claim that most women of quality were married by 16 isn't sitting right with me, based on what I know of medieval marriage trends from elsewhere.

Did AC/DC know that TNT is not the same as Dynamite when they wrote their song? Did they ever address this mistake?

I've been making chainmail for many years now and have been wondering this for even longer, but it only just occurred to me to just ask.

Making chainmail, even today, takes a really long time, and that's even without riveting. Riveting every single ring takes even longer, and looking at pictures of old chainmail tells me that the armor was riveted, which is more than some people do even nowadays (but makes total sense in the context of using it for protection), including many prop departments for movies and shows.

So, considering how time consuming it is to make chainmail, and that's with the ability to head to a hardware store and buy long spools of wire all ready for me, how did people manage to deliver chainmail to armies way back when?

All I really know is that the method used back then was likely not using wire, but rather punching circles out of metal plates and using the flat circles as each chain link, but that doesn't really make it faster since the real time consuming part of the process is getting each link connected and riveting them. Also, some pictures of chainmail look like the rings are fairly round (and I don't mean the big circle part, I mean the material itself) which makes it look like wire.

Is the answer as simple as only the elites having access to chainmail?

I had posted an article about millenials lacking knowledge of the Holocaust in another subreddit, and a number of the responses to it were from folks who were either never taught about it because their history classes never got as far as WWII, or because the treatment of it was so abbreviated that they don't have an understanding of WWII, Hitler's rise to power, or the Holocaust.

Keeping in mind that this is reddit and most folks aren't going to go out of their way to buy books to learn things they didn't learn in school, are there some good, engaging online resources that cover the (admittedly enormous) topic?

I'm hoping I can hear some other opinions on a book I'm reading, and just kinda fact check it. If there's any Celtic experts, or possibly pre-roman Europe experts.

The book is called Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the lost world of the celts, by Graham Robb. He seems to have really good sources, but he's also a journalist and the book is essentially about his epiphany that the celts MUST have done more before Rome expanded into Europe. He especially believes most Roman roads in Europe are actually Celtic roads that the romans took over. He's a good writer, but I can't shake a feeling that he's really romanticising the Celts and down playing Romans.

I was just wondering if anyone else had read it and had any thoughts/opinions on it.

Edit: Just to add, I have seen several reviews online, but I just wanted to see if anyone in the community here had read it.

As I understand, in many places in Europe in late middle ages / early modern period (before adoption of Gregorian calendar) new calendar year started in March?

Does that mean that when I am looking at primary sources and see dates see e.g. February 1511 and October 1511 the event in October had actually happened before the one in February?

How much of a problem is this for Historians? If I read a secondary work about an era, and they mention something happening in January and February of a year how can I be sure which year, previous or next, is meant?

What is the difference between a caliph/caliphate and a sultanate?

Japanese anime seems to, on the surface, have a lot of German names and words. Is there a historical precedent for German having a cultural influence on Japan?

Does "impure blood" in La Marseillaise refer to that of the aristocratic enemy's or the blood of the revolutionaries themselves? ie, they're not noble, therefore "impure"

The Connecticut Compromise only passed by a single vote, possibly saving the Constitution. Why was such a compromise so controversial and what arguments were raised in opposition and support?

Was there really an increase in agricultural production brought by rural collectivization in Spain during the 1936 Spanish Revolution? Some people claim that production skyrocketed, but I have trouble finding the claims of increased production outside of partisan sources (i.e anarchists and socialists).

Also, I don't know if these questions are more fitting for stand-alone asking but also: What was the rural collectivization in Revolutionary Anarchist Spain generally like?

Is personal hygiene well documented throughout history? Did it vary radically through the years and cultures, or is it a form of standard human behavior? Any notable examples?

This is somewhat personal but I think general enough as well if the tattoo in question has meaning. I'm not really sure if it's appropriate here or not, but I'll give it a shot, and I'd appreciate being pointed in other directions if it's not appropriate here.

My dad's grandma immigrated to the US from Poland after WWI. My dad believes it was in the 1920s. She had a number tattoo on her forearm that looked like the type that were in Nazi death camps in WWII but he is certain she moved here after WWI, not WWII. He doesn't remember the numbers.

I would question his memory (it's just an anecdote, he doesn't have documents) but my dad's dad, who was born in America and is the son of the Polish grandma, fought in WWII when he was 18. I have researched and do know this is true so the time line seems like it would have indeed been after WWI (WWII would have been impossible). I don't know the ages of the grandma or my dad's dad, but my dad was born in America in 1960 and his grandma died when my dad was 9-12 he believes. My dad's dad died in an accident when my dad was a younger child, so unfortunately there's no help there. I have personally never known anyone in his family older the generation of him and his siblings otherwise I probably would have pestered them for answers more than he was willing to. His siblings said they remember the tattoo and don't know why she had it but they don't seem as curious about it as me and my dad are.

Thanks for any ideas. My dad would be really grateful if someone could find an answer for him (and also teach him that strangers on the internet aren't all kidnappers and murderers lol)

Who is responsible for the Piltdown Man hoax? How sure are we?

What was the first language of the Austrian Habsburg dynasts? What was the language used at court?

I have a service revolver from Seattle PD from 1908. I am trying to figure out the caliber of the rounds because I was told at the time the police departments had specialized rounds so their weapons would not be stolen and used. No gun smith I have taken it to had known. Does anyone know what rounds these revolvers take?

Is Peter Baxter a good authority on the Selous Scouts or is he biased towards Rhodesia?

Hello!

Roughly how large was Baghdad in about 900 AD? When the population was nearing the high hundred-thousands?

What about ancient Athens circa 400 BC, when it supposedly had a population in the low-mid hundred-thousands?

I've tried Googling and can't find any reliable answers. :(

Hm... I’m not sure if I should ask this here or make a new thread... lemme know if I should do the latter, otherwise, here goes....

Does anyone know of any good, brief sources (like an overview or essay) explaining the anti-classical movement in American education from the 1970s? I’ve only ever heard about it through indirect references—It was a movement away from the classical literature of Europe (from Homer to Dickens) towards more recent American literature (the likes of Twain, Steinbeck and Faulkner). It’s usually referenced as the reason why few Americans are familiar with The Canterbury Tales, A Tale Of Two Cities, Don Quixote, the Iliad, etc. I’ve also so,Times heard it attributed to the feminist movement pushing back against the literature of “old white guys,” but I’m not sure how accurate that is, and I’m personally curious as to whether or not the anti-classical movement was related to the anti-intellectual movement that began (in earnest) in the 1990s and continues well into the present day.

Was scalping introduced to the Americas by European settlers or does it predate their arrival?

Are there any records suggesting what proportion of people died from amputations (surgical or judicial) in the early modern and medieval periods (especially before Pare)?

Prompted by this paper (Micarelli et al, 'Survival to amputation in pre-antibiotic era: a case study from a Longobard necropolis (6th-8th centuries AD)' Journal of Anthropological Sciences Vol. 96 (2018), pp. 1-16). (Might also be interesting for those "injured Saxon warrior" questions.)

The paper's language re. how remarkable it was initially made me think they were being somewhat blinkered in concentrating only on archaeological and not historical material as well. But perhaps woodcuts featuing amputee beggars, and judicial amputations not being described as frequently followed by death, give an erroneous impression. Samuel Cooper's Dictionary of Practical Surgery (1818 p.28, Google Books) states that the ancients found it so dangerous due to haemorrhage that they didn't amputate where avoidable; Cooper couldn't have looked at ancient texts with the thoroughness of more recent scholarship, but he would have known a thing or two about how difficult it actually was to perform amputation in what are to us pre-modern conditions.

What exactly did the Mongolian title "Genghis Khan" mean? I understand it means something like Great King. Any history of the term you could add would be helpful as well, especially if that title was adapted in other cultures.

Specifically, I am aware the Latin title "Caesar" later became "Kaiser" and "Tsar," in German and Russian, respectively. Did the humongous Mongolian empire inspire other cultures to use or adapt the "Genghis Khan" title, like the Latin term "Caesar" was?

I'm wondering whether there is textual evidence that gladiators were used as trainers for the Roman army from 107 B.C. onward. The reason I ask is that the capite censi had no resource to train by themselves and gladiators seems to have been the only professional martial artists available. I also remember Vegetius mentioning that legionnaires would train with heavier weapons and shield and reading somewhere that it was a common gladiatorial combat training technique (but it was a long time ago and my memory is a bit fuzzy).

A colleague of mine (a Palestinian-Syrian) mentioned today that his dad grew up in Kuwait (to hazard a guess when, I would say 60's/70's). As School's were segregated at this time, he went to the Palestinian schooling system, run by the PLO.

He mentions an incident at one of the national stadiums at the time, where there was a national parade of school kids from across the country. When it was the Palestinian kids turn, they wheeled out a hut draped with the Israeli flag which the kids proceeded to desecrate with blank-loaded AK's.

This sounds like incredible BS, and a quick google search yields nothings, can anyone shed some light on what sounds like an urban myth?

How were pagan deities transferred between cultures during the Bronze Age? What made a certain God "familiar," but another "foreign"?

Any good academic definitions of pragmatic vs ideological in the context of foreign policy decisions?

What was the real reason why World War 2 started?